Nadeem Joseph, a Christian was murdered in cold blood by a neighbouring Muslim neighbour as he had purchased a house in a ‘Muslim-only’ locality in Peshawar, which is the capital of Pakistan’s Khybar Pakhtunkhawa province. More than a dozen such cases of atrocity against minorities have been reported in Pakistan in the last one month as PM Imran Khan has clearly failed to stop the Muslim hegemony over Hindus, Christian, Sikhs and other denominations of Islam in his country.
Reports say that Jospeh had purchased a house in the TV Colony in Peshawar couple of months ago. In May this year, Joseph and his family were accosted and attacked by Salman Khan and others, who were his Muslim neighbors because he had purchased a home in a colony which the neighbors has wishe to be a ‘Muslim-only’ locality.
On June 4th, Nadeem Joseph, his mother-in-law, Elizabeth, and his brother-in-law, Babar Masih were attacked again in front of their home by their Muslim neighbors who came with guns. The attack was without any provocation and when Joseph and his family tried to reason with them, they were sprayed with bullets by Salman Khan and his sons. Joseph was shot twice in his stomach, his mother-in-law and brother-in-law were both shot once in the shoulder and in the leg. All three were admitted to local hospital. But Joseph succumbed to his wounds on June 30.
According to Joseph and his family, Khan attacked them because they purchased a home in what Khan claimed to be a ‘Muslim neighborhood.
In a video message recorded from his hospital bed in early June, Joseph had said, “A month ago, I purchased a house in TV Colony. I still have to make the final payments to the seller, but Salman Khan, a Muslim in the neighborhood, started harassing my family.” While Joseph and his family resided in TV Colony, they were harassed by Muslim neighbors who called them ‘chooras’, a derogatory term used to denote Christians as untouchable. Muslim neighbors also damaged the doors of their home and constantly rode loud motorbikes past their house.
Joseph in his video message had alleged that Khan and his sons asked his family to leave this neighborhood because it was “meant for Muslim residents only.” Khan reportedly when on to say, “How dare a Christian family live amid Muslims.”
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