LAHORE, Pakistan — The Muslim employer of a Christian boy forcibly converted him to Islam and is holding him captive, the family’s attorney said.
In Sultan Town, Sargodha in Punjab Province, 14-year-old Shamraiz Masih went to a market on July 21 and didn't return, attorney Tahir Naveed Chaudhry said. Shamraiz had begun as an apprentice at a motorcycle repair workshop owned by Rana Munir after the death of his father, Imran Masih, four months ago, Chaudhry said.
After searching for him without success, Shamraiz’s brothers registered a First Information Report (FIR) of abduction.
“Meanwhile, someone informed them that they had seen Shamraiz and Munir entering the Madina Ghausia Madrassa [Islamic seminary] located in the Company Bagh neighborhood,” Chaudhry told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “When the boys went to the madrassa and asked for their brother, they were told that Shamraiz had willfully converted to Islam and was no longer a part of their family.”
Shamraiz, a member of the local Presbyterian church, belongs to a very poor family, and his widowed mother was forced to send him to work after his father’s death. Chaudhry said that Shamraiz’s brother, Sahil Masih, had initially filed the abduction case against unknown persons, but when Munir’s role was exposed, his name was added to the FIR as the primary suspect.
The attorney found that on July 22, an application was filed in the court of Rana Sohail Riaz, Magistrate Section-30 Sargodha, in Shamraiz’s Muslim name, “Muhammad Umar,” seeking permission to record his statement in the abduction FIR registered by his brother, Sahil Masih.
“In the application, ‘Umar’ claimed that he was a 15-year-old ‘adult’ and had converted to Islam of his own free will after getting ‘inspired’ by Islamic teachings,” Chaudhry said. “He also claimed that his brother had registered a fake abduction case against Rana Munir which should be dismissed because he had left home willingly.”
The magistrate issued a notice to Sahil Masih and the investigating officer to appear in court on July 25. Complying with the court’s directive, family members and their attorney appeared before the magistrate that day, but Shamraiz did not.
“Instead, the police submitted a document according to which Shamraiz had recorded his statement in the court of Muhammad Kashif Pasha, special judicial magistrate in Lahore, on July 24, reiterating his claim of willful conversion,” Chaudhry said. “After seeing the court’s document, Judge Riaz disposed of Shamraiz’s application.”
Those who forcibly converted Shamraiz to Islam intentionally got his statement recorded in a Lahore court to prevent the family from meeting their son, Chaudhry said.
“If Shamraiz had appeared in the court in Sargodha, he would have surely revealed the truth after seeing his mother and brothers, which is why they took him to Lahore,” he said. “We will now take this matter to the superior courts, because Shamraiz’s mother is his legal guardian even if the other side claims that he has converted to Islam.”
It was obvious that Munir forcibly converted Shamraiz to Islam to keep him in permanent bondage, Chaudhry said.
“There’s no other plausible reason for this alleged conversion,” he added.
The attorney, a former member of the Punjab Provincial Assembly, said that he had reached out to local Muslim leaders to try to persuade them to help recover the boy.
“We told the religious leaders that we are not opposed to adults changing their faith, but we cannot remain silent on forced faith conversions of minor children,” he said. “However, we did not get any positive response from them.”
The issue of the boy’s forced faith conversion surfaced in the Punjab Provincial Assembly’s session on July 25, where Falbous Christopher, chairman of the standing committee on human rights and minorities affairs, and other Christian lawmakers condemned the act and sought the government’s intervention.
“The appeals of the boy’s widowed mother for his recovery have caused pain and anguish in the entire Christian community,” Christopher said. “How is it possible that only a 14-year-old illiterate boy got inclined towards Islam while his other family members are still Christian? Such incidents bring a bad name for the country, and it’s time that the government takes action against abduction and forced conversions of minor girls and boys.”
Attempts to forcibly convert Christian boys or men to Islam are rare in Pakistan. Christian and Hindu girls and young women are frequently abducted and forced to “convert” to Islam before being coerced into marrying a Muslim.
In September, a 17-year-old Christian boy, Samsoon Javed, who worked at a gas outlet owned by Umar Manzoor, a Muslim in Bhadru Minara village, Sheikhupura District, Punjab Province, was forcibly converted to Islam by his employer.
Some Muslims believe that the mere recitation of the shahada (“Kalima” in Urdu, the Islamic proclamation of faith) is sufficient to convert a non-Muslim to Islam, even if there is no belief and no matter what circumstances surround the “conversion.” Once a person becomes a Muslim, he or she is considered apostate if they return to their original faith.
Apostasy is punishable by death, imprisonment or confiscation of property according to Islamic law, though in modern times this is rarely practiced at the state level. Some zealous Muslims, however, have believed they were doing the right thing by attacking or killing apostates.
Pakistan is ranked No. 8 on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian.
This article was originally published at Christian Daily International–Morning Star News
