The mob beat them and broke their legs so they would not be able to flee. "They picked them up by their arms and legs and held them over the brick furnace until their clothes caught fire. And then they threw them inside the furnace." — Javed Maseeh, family spokesman, to NBC News.
The attack was not an isolated one. Rather it seems to be part of systematic killings, community by community.
Imagine you are a person of Christian faith living as a citizen in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan: every moment your life is at risk. Imagine a Pakistani Muslim shouting that you have burned a page of holy Quran when you have not; or accusing you of having desecrated the Prophet Mohammed: you have hardly any chance of saving yourself. There would be no question of providing evidence or proof against you. You would be killed either by the mob or by the country's legal system.
If you were one of the 3% minority Christians of Pakistan, you would fear for your life every moment among the majority Muslims; any one of them could shout and point at you as the Nazi collaborators did during the Second World War against the Jews. You inevitably would be beaten to death by your fellow countrymen.
This month in Pakistan, a Christian couple and their unborn child were
burned to death, because of a false accusation of burning pages of a Quran.
Local villagers, called through the mosque's loudspeakers, came by the hundreds. They tore apart the room where Shama Bibi and her husband, Shahzad Masih, had taken shelter and took the couple out by force.
The mob beat them and broke their legs so they would not be able to flee. They were then held over an open kiln until their clothes caught fire. "They picked them up by the arms and legs and held them over the brick kiln until their clothes caught fire. And then they threw them inside the furnace,"
according to Javed Maseeh, a spokesman for the family. When Shama's clothes would not burn, the mob wrapped her in cotton "so she would set alight faster."
