Ten-year-old Christian girl raped by 60-year-old Muslim merchant in Faisalabad
Faisalabad (AsiaNews) - The wave of anti-Christian violence has not stopped in Pakistan. Abuses continue to be perpetrated in the name of the blasphemy law and acts of sexual violence are carried out against underage girls from religious minorities, treated as mere objects for personal pleasure.
As the case of Rimsha Masih, the young girl with mental disabilities falsely accused based on the 'black law,' continues to draw the attention of the international community, the case involving another Christian girl came to light yesterday. On 25 August, Allah Rakhi, 10, was sexually assaulted by a Muslim scrap dealer. The girl, who is from a poor family in Yousafabad, Madina Town, Faisalabad, was brutally raped and left bleeding on the ground.
Local sources report that police filed a case against the accused rapist and arrested him, but details about the incident surfaced only in the last few hours.
Early reports say that the girl went to a store to sell some old items along with her 8-year-old sister Suneha. The scrap dealer, Muhammad Nazir, 60, told her that he would buy the items but had no cash to pay her. He invited the two sisters to follow him to his home where he would pay them. Once they arrived, he let only the 10 year old into the house.
After a while, Suneha entered the house where she found her sister, naked and crying. She then ran home and told her father who came back to get his older daughter. The latter was still lying on the floor where she had been sexually assaulted, unconscious and in pain. In the room, a TV was still on showing a porno movie, a source said.
A medical examination confirmed the girl had been raped. Thanks to the cooperation of a Christian activist, a case was filed against Muhammad Nazir. Even though he threatened to make Christians pay if they reported the incident, he was subsequently arrested,.
"We are very poor and unable to fight with this kind of rich people," Sarfraz Masih, the girl's father, told AsiaNews. "We have been threatened," but "we will fight for justice and will not step back because of threats or blandishments. My daughter is in critical situation and I have sent her to an unknown place for security reasons."
For Fr Khalid Rashid Asi, vicar general of the Diocese of Faisalabad, "the lack of justice in Pakistan means that the rich and powerful think that they can commit such acts and get away with it," which is what often happens.
Had such a terrible crime been done against a Muslim girl, "it is likely that all the Christian homes in the area would have been torched." The law must be the same for everyone, the priest said, "and offenders punished."
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