Pakistani court sentences five for killing Christian couple

An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has sentenced five men to death for their part in the mob killing of a Christian couple in November 2014.

The men—Mehdi Khan, Riaz Kambo, Irfan Shakoor, Muhammad Hanif, and Islamic prayer leader Hafiz Ishtiaq—used a mosque loudspeaker to draw a crowd and incite them to violence against Shahzad Masih, 28, and Shama Bibi, his 25-year-old pregnant wife, according to Dawn News. The murder left the couple’s other four children orphaned.

The illiterate couple was accused of blasphemy for allegedly burning pages of a Quran, a crime punishable by death in the Islamic nation. Mob violence against accused blasphemers is common, especially against religious minorities. But an investigator with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan insisted Masih and Bibi did not burn Quran pages, just paper with Arabic writing.

As news of the accusation spread, the couple’s employer refused to let them flee, locking them up for three days, before a mob of hundreds of Muslims viciously seized, beat, and burned them to death. Police at the scene failed to stop the violent mob. In August 2015, Pakistan’s Supreme Court harshly criticized the police for their negligence, Agenzia Fides reported.

Masih and Bibi were bonded laborers working in brick kilns in Kot Radha Kishan village, in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Workers make very little money, face exploitation, and often are illegally kept indebted to their employers for many years—even generations, according to World Watch Monitor (WWM). In Punjab, a disproportionate number of bonded brick kiln workers are Christians.

Shortly after the murders, more than 300 people protested in Lahore, demanding justice for the victims. Persecution and human rights groups denounced the crime, calling for prosecution of those responsible. The prime minister called it “unacceptable” and warned the perpetrators would get “no mercy.”

Of the hundreds who helped kill Masih and Bibi, about 100 were charged with murder under the country’s anti-terrorism act, according to Agenzia Fides.

“Although several of the suspects were acquitted after statements by Shahzad’s brothers, still five have received the punishment of death, which is an extraordinary step by the court,” Riaz Anjum from the Voice Society, told WWM. Anjum represented the murdered woman’s father, Mukhtar Masih, in court.

The Pakistani court also sentenced eight others to two years in prison for their involvement.