(Morning Star News) The father of a 17-year-old Christian who was killed in a school in Pakistan by at least one Muslim classmate said the attack was religiously motivated, a charge that police dispute.
Ilyasab Masih told Morning Star News by phone from his home in Chak 461 village, Vehari District in Punjab Province, that a teacher had set sent a strong nonverbal message of anti-Christian hostility by hitting and humiliating his son, Sharoon Masih, the day before the assault on Aug. 27.
“His teacher, Nazeer Mohal, sent him back home because he was not wearing the proper uniform,” Masih said. “His mother told me later that evening that Sharoon had told her that the teacher had hit him in front of the whole class and also called him a Chuhra [a derogatory word for Pakistani Christians], among other curse words. She said that he was quite upset at being humiliated in front of the whole class on the very first day of school.”