CV NEWS FEED // A 22-year-old Christian man in Lahore, Pakistan, is recovering after surviving a brutal throat-slashing at his workplace — an attack he and his family say was motivated by religious coercion.
Waqas Masih, who works as a scrap contractor, sustained a deep wound to his throat March 21 when a Muslim coworker allegedly attempted to kill him after he refused to convert to Islam, UCA News reported.
The assailant, identified as Zohaib Iftikhar, served as shift-in-charge at Subhan Ullah Paper Mills in Sharaqpur, Punjab. Masih’s family, members of the Pentecostal Church, say Iftikhar had long pressured the young man to accept Islam before launching the violent attack with a box cutter blade.
Masih, in a written statement, said Iftikhar falsely accused him of desecrating a copy of an Islamic textbook with his “unclean hands” while collecting scrap material.
“Then, suddenly, he lunged at my throat and slashed it,” Masih said in a testimony given to the Christian non-government organization Humanitarian Action for Rights and Development Society (HARDS).
Despite the severity of the injury, he managed to tie his shirt around the wound and run to the office for help.
“He had planned to kill me,” Masih added.
From his hospital bed, where he continues to recover, Masih confirmed to UCA News that the attack followed his refusal to convert.
“Muslims often invite Christians to Islam, and we simply don’t respond,” Masih’s mother, Bushra Bibi, told UCA News. “We thought it was not a big deal. But we never imagined it would turn this dangerous. This is plain terrorism.”
Police, however, dismissed the religious motivation, attributing the attack to a personal dispute.
“Our inquiry revealed they had fought a day earlier. Such things are common in factories,” Assistant Sub-Inspector Abdur Rehman told UCA News. The factory owner also denied that any religious material had been mishandled.
Sohail Habel, who leads HARDS, expressed concern that authorities had failed to follow legal protocol, noting that the suspect had not yet been brought before a magistrate within the required 24-hour period. He criticized the police response.
“We often hear of the plight of Christian girls,” he said, “but young Christian men are not safe either.”
Pakistan, where Muslims make up the vast majority of the population, ranks eighth on Open Doors World Watch List, which tracks countries with the most severe persecution of Christians.
The attack on Masih is part of a broader, deeply rooted crisis in the country, where Christians routinely face targeted violence and systemic discrimination — compounded by harsh blasphemy laws and the ongoing threat of forced marriages and religious conversions, often with inadequate legal recourse.
>> Pakistan increases deportations of Afghan Christian refugees fleeing Taliban <<
The post Christian man survives throat slashing in Pakistan after refusing conversion to Islam appeared first on CatholicVote org.