September 29, 2004
His Muslim captors told Pastor Yousaf Masih, 33, that they were taking revenge for the
The Baptist minister was abducted off a back street near his home after dark on Sunday evening, September 12. Walking home from a worship service, Masih was confronted by a bearded man who held a revolver to his side, warning, “If you try to resist me, I will shoot you and your wife and children.”
With the help of another accomplice, the man forced Masih into a red car parked along a nearby main street. Although the men spoke Urdu with Masih, he said they spoke with each other in Pashto, the language of the tribal Pathans living in southern
Although Masih was blindfolded, he understood from the shouts of transport hawkers along the way that they were driving through Sukkur. “After this they turned left [north], but then the car turned many ways, so I had no knowledge where I was being taken,” Masih told Compass by telephone today from Jacobabad.
When the car stopped, Masih said he was taken into a room where his head was shaved, and his shirt and trousers exchanged for traditional “shalvar kamiz” clothing. “Then they injected something into my right arm, and I went unconscious,” he said.
When he came back to his senses, he said he found himself in another room with an iron girder, where his captors suspended him by his legs, with his hands tied behind his back.
“They beat me on my legs and arms and back with long wooden sticks, shouting, ‘Christians are dogs!’” Masih said.
The pastor said his captors denounced the “Christian” American military for killing “many, many of our Muslim people,” complaining specifically about the
“You are a Christian, and the Americans are also Christians. So tell the Americans to leave this airbase. Otherwise, we will continue to give trouble to you and other Christians,” they warned.
In addition, the kidnappers ordered Masih to stop praying for Muslims at his church. Masih said he told them that Hindus and Muslims and people from the Christian community all come to visit his home. “So I pray with them over their problems,” he said.
After the threats and extended thrashing, he was taken down and given some bread, lentils and water. Soon afterward he again fell unconscious, causing him to suspect they had drugged the food. He awoke in yet another room, where he was whipped on the soles of his feet and fed bread and vegetable curry.
When he next regained consciousness, he said he found himself lying on the ground outside, in the dark of night. “My whole body was seriously swollen, my feet and my legs, but I started to walk slowly,” he recalled. After he came to a small road, a Suzuki pickup came along and stopped for him.
Masih explained what had happened, asking where he was. The driver told him they were just a half-hour’s drive to
According to a medical report issued by the Bannu hospital, the effects of the heavy beatings caused serious swelling and damage to the pastor’s leg tissues and injury to his back. His blood pressure continues to drop as low as 100/40 at times, he said.
Masih was transferred on September 17 under police protection back to his home in Jacobabad, where the small government hospital continues to monitor his treatment. It has been recommended that he go to the
Although local police resisted initial attempts to file a report on his disappearance, an official First Information Report was registered on September 14. Since Masih’s return home, Jacobabad’s senior superintendent of police has insisted it was a faked kidnapping, and that his alleged captors were Christians, not Muslims. “You were not kidnapped,” Din Mohammed Baloch reportedly told Masih on September 23. “You were doing a drama.”
Married with a nine-year-old son and four-year-old daughter, Masih admitted, “My wife is really feeling very troubled now. So pray for us.”
Masih is the second Protestant pastor subjected to kidnapping and torture at the hands of Islamist extremists in
© 2004 Compass Direct
