MIAN CHANNU, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- Compass Direct News (CDN) is reporting that six Muslims in Khanewal district in the southern Punjab Province of Pakistan, killed a Christian with multiple axe blows for refusing to convert to Islam this month, according to family and police sources.

The body of Rasheed Masih at rest after his violent death (Photo: Compass)

The CDN story says, “The six men had threatened to kill 36-year-old Rasheed Masih unless he converted to Islam when they grew resentful of his potato business succeeding beyond their own, according to Masih’s younger brother Munir Asi and a local clergyman.

“The rival merchants allegedly killed him after luring him to their farmhouse on March 9, leaving him on a roadside near Kothi Nand Singh village in the wee hours of the next day.”

The Rev. Iqbal Masih of the Mian Channu Parish of the Church of Pakistan told Compass Direct that Rasheed Masih was a “devoted Christian,” and that both he and his brother Asi had “refused the Muslims’ pressure to convert to Islam.”

Mian Channu police have registered a case against the six men and an investigation is underway, but the suspects are still at large, police officers told Compass.

Police said the suspects were Ghulam Rasool, Muhammad Asif, Muhammad Amjad, one identified only as Kashif and two other unidentified Muslims; they were charged with torture and murder. Masih’s family lives in Babo John Colony, Mian Channu of Khanewal district.

“Our continuous denial to recant our faith and convert gradually turned into enmity,” Asi told Compass. The FIR [First Information Report] states, “Both the Muslim men [Rasool and Asif] were not only inviting them to Islam but hurling threats of dire consequences and death on them for the last six months in case they refused to convert.”

Note: The name “Masih,” which is Arabic for “Messiah,” is a common surname in Pakistan among Christians.)

For more information, go to www.compassdirect.org

Dan Wooding, 69, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 46 years. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC., and now hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on KWVE in Southern California and which is also carried on the Calvary Radio Network throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK. Wooding also a regular contributor to The Weekend Stand on the Crawford Broadcasting Network, and a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. He is the author of some 43 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, “From Tabloid to Truth”, which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, press this link. Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, also recently released “God’s Ambassadors in Japan” which is available at amazon.com.