An 18-year-old Christian woman in Pakistan, Imaan Khurrum, has courageously come forward with a harrowing account of abduction and rape, only to face an agonizing silence from those sworn to protect her. Imaan, from Sheikhupura District in Punjab Province, revealed through a Christian news channel that on November 7, she was brutally assaulted by a man named Ansar Shah. As she walked home from her job at a shoe factory, struggling to support her family, Shah ambushed her. Armed and remorseless, he dragged her to an abandoned brick kiln, where he raped her.
Imaan’s trembling voice recounted the horror: Shah had been stalking her for months, ignoring her family’s desperate pleas to stop. That day, he threatened to kill her younger brothers if she resisted. At gunpoint, he forced her onto his motorcycle and took her to the kiln, a place shrouded in the eerie stillness of smog-induced abandonment. There, he beat her, tore her clothes, and violated her, leaving her shattered and scarred.
Her mother, Sana Khurrum, a woman burdened by years of struggle after her husband’s abandonment, shared her anguish. “We are targeted because we are poor and Christian,” she said, her pain evident as she spoke of a life marred by poverty and prejudice. Imaan’s uncle, Morris Nazir, condemned the police’s inaction, revealing that Shah remains free, emboldened by bribes and influence. “A week has passed, yet justice evades us,” he said, his voice heavy with frustration and despair.
Their pleas for justice are met with deafening indifference. The family, already vulnerable, is now under pressure to withdraw their case, their cries for accountability lost in a system skewed against the marginalized. “We demand justice for our daughter,” Nazir implored, urging authorities to act. “If Shah walks free, other Christian girls will face the same fate.”
Imaan’s story is a stark reminder of the systemic inequalities plaguing Pakistan’s minorities. Rights advocates stress the urgent need for reform, calling on the state to ensure justice is not a privilege reserved for the powerful. Without swift action, the message remains clear: justice for the vulnerable is a distant dream.