Police poised to arrest local church pastor on “false” charges

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ISLAMABAD: July 4, 2012. (Shamim Masih) It was late evening, when editor “Minority Times” Islamabad called me and requested to join quickly at Fatima Church, sector F-8/4 Islamabad Pakistan. When I reached there, and enquired the issue, I was told that local church pastor father Rehmat Hakim Michael is about to march to nearest police station in protest because the false FIR (First Investigation Report) is about to launched against him. According to details, church pastor father Rehmat Hakim Michael was informed by an official of the Margalla Police Station that police was going to register an FIR against him on the charges of “kidnapping afghan refugees and killing them on their refusal to convert to Christianity.” The anonymous phone call sent shivers down the spine of the poor priest who could never have imagined of kidnapping people for the purpose of conversion, save killing them in a brutal manner. The nervous priest made frantic calls to friends and community leaders to rescue him from landing in the lock up. When they approached the police station, they were told that resident of sector I-9 Javed Iqbal has filed application against him. Javed Iqbal has claimed in his application his wife Farishta Bibi, an afghan refugee along with other members of her family Tahira Bibi and Fareed Khan was kidnapped by Pastor Rehmat Hakim Michael and his “gang” in 2001, on refusal to become Christian they were shifted to some unknown place and were most probably killed. The applicant has sought police help to trace them and register an FIR against Father Rehmat and one Sajjad Anjam and investigate them in this regard. Ironically, Father Rehmat was transferred to Lady Fatima Church in 2007, while the kidnapping incident as reported in the application by the Javed Iqbal, during 2001, Father Rehmat was serving in Gujrat. On the other hand Father Rehmat said that he had never met or seen or heard about the persons as mentioned in the application. However he said he was ready to face investigation by any agency in order to reach the truth. He said that he was being trapped for some ulterior motives of the distances between the Muslims and the Christians of the city. The applicant will never succeed in defaming the church and Christian community, he added. The story behind the scene that a strong Afghani family in sector G-8 has occupied two church properties since 1999 and on the demand to vacate by the church administration, they are propagating. Father Rehmat requested to the Supreme Court and human right commission to interfere in the matter to solve the issue. They also protested against these fake applications and demanded the authority to take quick action.

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"Trial of Pakistani Christian Nation" By Nazir S Bhatti

On demand of our readers, I have decided to release E-Book version of "Trial of Pakistani Christian Nation" on website of PCP which can also be viewed on website of Pakistan Christian Congress www.pakistanchristiancongress.org . You can read chapter wise by clicking tab on left handside of PDF format of E-Book.

nazirbhattipcc@aol.com , pakistanchristianpost@yahoo.com