‘Serial rapist’ targets 6th Christian girl in Pakistan

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Pakistani Christian women
Pakistani Christian women console each other after an attack.

Pakistani Christian women
Pakistani Christian women console each other after an attack.

A Pakistani Muslim, who allegedly sexually assaulted five Christian girls, last month raped a 10-year-old Catholic girl in the Punjab province of that country, the victim’s family said.

The Tarkhani police have charged 25-year-old Muhammad Aftab, alias Chandu, with raping a minor (section 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code) in a sugar cane field in Village 226-GB, according to First Information Report (FIR) No. 429.

Aftab has since been arrested and remanded to Central Jail Faisalabad in Pakistan.

Compass quoted Abid Masih, a 31-year-old relative of the girl, as saying that the Muslim man raped the girl on Dec. 10 in village 226-GB, Tarkhani near Gojra.

More news reports: Christians in Pakistan

“Though we had informed the Tarkhani police station, for a day we kept quiet as the rapist had gone underground, and we waited for him to come out,” Masih told the news agency at his home. “When the rapist saw that no one has taken action against him, he came out, and our girl immediately identified him.”

The girl, whose name is withheld, went to a nearby field with 7-year-old Sahil Abid to load sugar cane for transport to a processing plant. The girl’s father, 55-year-old electrician Yousaf Masih, said that Aftab seized her and rushed into the sugar cane fields, Compass reported.

“Sahil Abid started screaming for help, but no one was there to help him,” Abid Masih said. “Therefore he came running to us and told us that a man kidnapped her and has taken her to the sugar cane fields.”

Sahil took him and Yousaf Masih to the site, Abid Masih said.

“As we reached there, that man masked his face and disappeared into the dense sugar cane fields,” he said.
Later, Abid Masih took her to the Tehsil Headquarters (THQ) Hospital, Samundri, he said.

Doctors at Samundri THQ Hospital confirmed that the girl was raped, and the FIR also notes that the medical report by doctors at the hospital states that she was raped.

Although Abid Masih and Yousaf Masih said that Sahil also was unable to see the rapist’s face, the girl was able to recognize him because she had been assaulted by him in the fields. They said she identified Aftab, the son of a local land owner.

“It’s not the first time he has raped a minor girl,” Abid Masih said. “He has raped at least five little Christian girls before this, but those families under pressure kept their mouths shut, and Christians also tried to force us to keep quiet and refrain from filing a police case, as they were fearful that it might worsen the relations between Christian and Muslim villagers.”

More news reports: Christians in Pakistan

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