Pakistan: Mentally Ill Christian Jailed For Alleged Blasphemy

By Kamran Chaudhry

(UCA News) — The family of a mentally challenged Christian youth is worried for his life after he was jailed on alleged blasphemy charges in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Farhan Masih, 28, was arrested on Jan. 26 from his house in a village in Sahiwal after a local farmer, Muhammad Bilal Khan, complained of blasphemy to police.

“I was going to water my crops when Farhan came and started speaking absurdities,” he stated in his complaint.

Khan alleged that the Christian youth told him that “the holy personages of your religion are false” and that he did not want to live among Muslims because “they belong to inferior status.”  

Masih was put under judicial remand in Central Jail Sahiwal on Jan. 27, confirmed Bashir Ahmad, the assistant sub-inspector of the local police station at Ghalla Mandi in Sahiwal.

Police had provided security to the New Revival Church in Masih’s village, which has around 100 Christian families living among the majority Muslims.

“The situation is peaceful in the village,” Ahmad told UCA News.

Masih’s younger sister, Anam Javed, said Masih had quit his job as a male nurse in 2023 and loitered around in the village aimlessly.

“He has been addicted to drugs for the past several years and speaks nonsense, even claiming to speak to god,” she told UCA News on Jan. 28.

Javed, a teacher at a Church-run school, said she’d planned to get him treated for his addiction.

“We’ve done everything we could… But now, we are worried for his life,” she said.

The sister said Masih has been falsely accused of blasphemy— “a crime he couldn’t even comprehend given his condition.”

Javed said her brother was “very vulnerable” with “no means to defend himself.”

According to Pastor Munir Masih Bhatti of the New Revival Church, the villagers often complained about Masih’s lousy behavior and said: “He even passed derogatory remarks against Jesus.”

The situation in the village since the arrest was tense, the pastor said.

Blasphemy is a sensitive charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even a mere allegation can ignite public outrage and sometimes result in mob violence.

Blaspheming against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad is a crime punishable by death under Pakistani laws.

Hundreds of people have been accused and jailed for alleged blasphemy, and some were handed the death penalty. However, no one has been executed so far.

Joseph Jansen, chairman of the rights group Voice for Justice, visited Masih’s family on Jan. 28.

Everyone in the village was aware that both Masih and his younger brother were mentally unstable, he said.

“But no preliminary investigation was done by the superintendent of police when receiving a complaint against an unstable individual. It’s a serious lacuna in the case,” Jansen added.

According to the Lahore-based advocacy group Center for Social Justice, 343 blasphemy cases were filed in the Muslim-majority country last year. These include 19 Christians, five of them females.