Pakistan’s ongoing crisis of minority rights took a violent turn in Gujranwala, where a Christian employee suffered a savage beating at the hands of fruit vendors. The February 27 incident in Punjab has minority group Voice of Pakistan Minority (VOPM) demanding accountability and systemic reform.
Yusuf Masih was set upon by four men who pummeled him with a hefty iron weight in a public market. Gravely wounded, he was helped by courageous bystanders amid widespread trepidation.
VOPM reveals this assault followed earlier provocations against Masih’s supervisor, suggesting premeditated aggression rooted in religious prejudice. Pastor Imran Amanat, speaking for the aggrieved community, called it ‘a daily ordeal of indignity and peril for Christian toilers.’
In Punjab and beyond, Christians populate the underbelly of sanitation services—sewage cleaning, waste management—jobs scorned by society yet vital to public health. Their faith invites discrimination, trapping them in poverty and fear.
The advocacy body frames Masih’s plight as emblematic: justice here is not merely legal but a measure of national conscience. Pakistan, aspiring to equality, must confront how it treats its most vulnerable. As calls for prosecution grow, the hope is for a precedent that safeguards all citizens, regardless of religion.