Pakistani Muslim Kills Christian Coworker for Drinking Water

In Pakistan, Christians are ordinarily confined to low-paying and menial jobs — sweeping streets, cleaning latrines, making and hauling bricks. This is a way to keep them in a state of permanent need and humiliation. And Muslims who employ them, or who may even work at the same site, are careful to remind them of their lowly state. A new story from Pakistan is about a Muslim who murdered a Christian who had dared to take a drink from a water cooler that, the Muslim claimed, was off-limits to Christians. More on this ghastly, but not unusual, tale can be found here.

Photo above: Widow and children of the Siddique Masih, slain for his faith on June 22, 2026 in Gohar Chak No. 8 village, Pakistan.

A Muslim in Pakistan killed a Christian co-worker on Monday (June 22) after telling him he could not drink water from a cooler used by other laborers, sources said.

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Local pastor and rights activist Saleem Ghouri said Siddique Masih was a Catholic father of four children. He was 40.

Masih worked as a daily-wage brick loader alongside his elder brother, Rafique Masih, at various brick kilns in Pattoki Tehsil of Kasur District, Punjab Province. The brothers had gone to Ayyan brick kiln in Gohar Chak No. 8 village to load bricks onto a truck, Ghouri said.

“According to eyewitnesses, Siddique and a Muslim laborer identified as Ahmad Varyam had a brief argument over a wage-related issue,” Ghouri told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “The dispute appeared to have been resolved after other workers intervened, and both men returned to work.”

A couple of hours later, Siddique approached a water cooler installed for laborers at the kiln.

“Witnesses said Ahmad confronted Siddique and objected to his drinking water from the same cooler because he was a Christian,” Ghouri said. “Siddique responded by comparing Ahmad’s conduct to that of Yazid, whose forces denied water to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussain and his family before the massacre at Karbala. According to witnesses, Ahmad then pulled out a knife, grabbed Siddique from behind and slit his throat. He died at the scene.”…

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I doubt if the murderer Ahmad Varyam will be given a sentence of more than a few years, and he may escape prison time altogether, especially if he promises to provide some financial support for the family of the man he killed. The Pakistani judiciary is not eager to punish Muslims sufficiently for crimes against Christians, fearing for their own safety if they do so.

It’s always open season on Christians in Pakistan. Muslim employers recently tortured their Christian employee to death, then tried to disguise it as a suicide. What had he done? Perhaps he asked permission to take a drink of water, or to take a brief break from the heat, or even just asked permission to go to the latrine. Or perhaps they just didn’t want to pay him the wages that were due. Anything at all could have rubbed his Muslim employers the wrong way, and led them to torture and murder him.

Another victim was a Christian laborer, accused of theft by a group of Muslim men. There was no proof to support this accusation, but it was quite enough for the Muslims, after torturing him (what fun!) to kill him.

In another case in March 2025, Christian factory worker Waqas Masih survived a throat-slashing attack by a Muslim co-worker who accused him of blasphemy. The attacker reportedly claimed that Masih had touched an Islamic textbook with “unclean hands,” an allegation rights advocates said reflected the misuse of religious sensitivities to justify violence.

No non-Muslim should touch a Qur’an. After all, non-Muslims are unclean. The Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the highest religious authorities in Iraq, once listed ten things that are “unclean” to Muslims. This quality of ritual uncleanness (known as najasat or najis) applies only to a specific, limited list of items. According to Sistani’s official Islamic laws, on the list of “unclean” things appear such items as urine, feces, blood, the body parts of a dog or a pig, alcoholic drinks, the sweat if an animal that eats excrement, and — most startling for most of us — the kafir, or non-Muslim. That is why a kafir innocently touching a Qur’an deserves condign punishment: his “uncleanness” has defiled the Holy Book. Of course it was understandable why Muslims would want, under the circumstances, to kill him. And the killers are unlikely to be punished; their defense is clear: a copy of our Holy Book has been made “unclean” by contact with a Christian. We were only defending it from defilement.

On June 6, 2024, 18-year-old Catholic worker Waqas Salamat died after allegedly being tortured by his employer and others for leaving his job without permission. Family members said he was subjected to prolonged electric shocks that resulted in fatal injuries.

Waqas Salamat, a Christian, left his job without permission from his Muslim employer. Who knows why? To get a drink of water, or to take a brief rest out of the sun, or possibly to visit the latrine. That was enough — more than enough — for him to be subject to a series of electric, shocks by that employer shocks which ultimately killed him.

The Pakistani police are not eager to investigate the murders of Christians by non-Muslims. They know that if they dare to arrest and bring charges against Muslims for such crimes, they themselves may be subject to Muslim mobs demanding that the prisoner be released. This is what is meant by “societal pressure.” The same popular pressure is felt by Pakistani judges, who are subject to death threats if they dare to sentence Muslims to long prison sentences for killing a kaffir. And the murders, as a result, continue to occur with little fear on the part of the perpetrators.