A Pakistani court has granted bail to the lead suspect in the brutal 2014 killings of a young Christian couple, burned alive in a brick kiln where they worked as bonded labourers, itself illegal in Pakistan.
National outrage over their deaths meant the case had moved to Pakistan’s anti-terrorism court and the state itself became the prosecution plaintiff against the double-killing – both unprecedented moves. Yet the anti-terrorism court allowed the kiln’s owner, Yousuf Gujjar, to walk free on 16th April.
Though the case against Gujjar and dozens of co-defendants remains open, the move recalls other cases in which suspects accused of attacking Christians have never been convicted of a crime.
A mob beat to near-death Shahzad Masih, 26, and his pregnant wife, Shama Bibi, 24, in November, 2014, after rumors arose that, two days before, she had burned pages of the Quran, a crime against Pakistan’s ‘blasphemy’ law that carries a mandatory lifetime prison sentence. The couple, who are survived by four children, were later thrown into a brick kiln. A post-mortem report has shown they were still alive when this occurred.
Aneeqa Maria, co-ordinator of The Voice Society, an NGO that works for the rights of minority Christians and which represented the family in court, told World Watch Monitor that Gujjar’s release was the first major direction by the court, and points to the release of other suspects.
