Christian teenager in Pakistan beaten to death by classmates after drinking from same glass as Muslim boy A 17-year-old Christian has been beaten to death by his fellow classmates at a school in Pakistan. Sharoon Masih, the […]

A 17-year-old Christian has been beaten to death by his fellow classmates at a school in Pakistan.

Sharoon Masih, the lone Christian student in his year, had only attended the school in South Punjab for three days. After complaining to his parents of bullying, he was set upon by pupils after drinking from the same glass as a Muslim, according to other students at the MC Model Boys Government School Burewala who witnessed the attack.

Although anti-Christian violence is common in the Muslim nation, the youthfulness of the mob in this case marks an ugly first for the country.

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The attack and arrests

Mr Masih’s teacher, Nazir Mol, originally claimed that he had not noticed any disturbance in the classroom as he had been reading a newspaper at the time. Autopsy reports confirm that Mr Masih died as the result of repeated blows to his head and body.

Police have arrested one student, Muhammad Ahmed Rana, who told police that he lashed out after Mr Masih broke the screen on his phone. Mr Rana has so far refused to name others involved in the attack, which occurred on August 27th.

“No proper investigation is being done,” Mr Masih’s mother, Razia Bibi, told i. His loss is “huge” to the family, she added, “we had great intimacy and were looking to him to support us and his sibling as we grow old.”

The head-teacher, Saleem Tahir, who was suspended following the attack, is still attending school, according to the British Pakistani Christian Association.

Only Christian in year group

Mr Masih was sent by his parents to MC Model Boys Government School after topping his class in the village school. His father, who worked at a brick kiln factory, had to save for years to afford even the nominal attendance fee.

Unable to pay for the school uniform, Sharoon turned up on his first day in casual clothes. He told his mother that his teacher slapped him twice on the face, and forced him to stand outside all day in the sun. Mr Mol also called him “chuhra”, he said – a highly-offensive caste-based insult – and other boys tried to force him to convert to Islam.

“Sharoon and I cried every night as he described the torture he was subjected”, said Mrs Bibi.

The killing “serves only to remind us that hatred towards religious minorities is bred into the majority population at a young age, through cultural norms and a biased national curriculum”, said Wilson Chowdhry, the chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, which is raising money to hire a solicitor to “circumnavigate police inertia.”

In April, a Pakistani university student was beaten to death and had his corpse dragged around campus by a mob of his peers, after an unconfirmed allegation that he committed blasphemy.