Death of Irfan Masih: Christians too untouchable
The Holy Month of Ramadan in Pakistan is underway when Muslims are fasting like other Islamic states around world. The Holy month of Ramadan is termed as month of blessings, forgives, peace and love according to Islam but in remote district of Thar desert of Sindh this Holy Month of Ramadan turned in cruelty when Muslim doctors who were fasting observed a human being dying before their eyes and cries of relatives and coworkers of Sanitary workers not pushed them to mercy and love.
In the Civil Hospital Umerkot, sewer cleaner Irfan Masih kept gasping for breath, his family members pleaded with the hospital staff to treat him, but the senior doctor at the facility refused to touch his sludge-covered body as he was "fasting". “The doctors refused to treat him because they were fasting and said my son was ‘napaak [unclean]’,” claimed Irshad Masih, the mother of the deceased.
Irfan Masih, a manual sanitary worker in Umerkot died in Civil Hospital, Umerkot on June 01, 2017, due to criminal negligence by doctors and relevant staff of local Municipal Committee. Maish, and his three fellow workers fainted due to suffocation while cleaning a manhole at Chhore Road area of the city.
Though Christians account for 90 percent of sewage workers and an even high percentage of sweepers, they make up only 2.45 percent of Pakistan's population. A large proportion of the Christian minority in Pakistan became sanitation workers for historical reasons. Sweeping in pre-Partition India was a job reserved for the lower castes. A large segment of lower Indian castes converted to Christianity after 1850, under British rule, to improve their lives.
The British continued these caste differences in the interests of convenience, economy and efficiency, and the colonial legacy inherited by the government of Pakistan has remained. After partition, even greater numbers of Christians were drawn to this profession; several landless Christian agricultural laborers who migrated to Pakistan took up the task of sweeping and sanitation in large cities in order to survive.
Christians make up one of the two largest (non-Muslim) religious minorities in Pakistan, along with Hindus. The total numbers of Christians in Pakistan were estimated at 2.5 million in 2005, or 1.6% of the population. Of these, approximately half are Roman Catholic and half Protestant.
The southern metropolis of Karachi has a large Christian population and there are countless Christian villages in the Punjab heartland and cities of Lahore and Faisalabad. There is also a sizeable population in the deeply conservative north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, particularly in Peshawar city. Pre-partition Pakistan was a much more diverse place but tolerance has declined as society has been increasingly Islamicised and more homogenous.
Since the 1990s, scores of Christians have also been convicted for desecrating the Koran or blaspheming against the Prophet Muhammad, although experts say most accusations are fuelled by personal disputes. While most were handed death sentences by lower courts, those sentences were often set aside by higher courts due to lack of evidence, or because the complainants were found to be targeting the community for economic benefits.
The US Commission of International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has published its annual report on religious freedom in the world. The commission recommended 16 countries – including Pakistan – for their deteriorated condition of religious freedom and demanded that the US Department of State designate these countries as “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC). The report finds Pakistan to be a Muslim majority country of 190 million people with religiously diverse population (comprising 95% Muslims and 5% non-Muslims). The country also has two to four million Ahmadis, who are not counted as Muslim by law. They are all face all types of persecution in their day to day life.