After he refuses to convert to Islam
The authorities don’t believe his story, but authorities in Pakistan generally side with Muslims against Christians.
As for the forced conversion, the Qur’an famously says that “there is no compulsion in religion,” (2:256), but what constitutes “compulsion” is in the eye of the beholder. The institutionalized subjugation of the dhimma, with its regular humiliation and harassment, from which one can be freed for the simple price of converting to Islam, is not considered compulsion. Remember Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, the journalists who were kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam — even though their conversions were obviously coerced, their captors made them say that they were converting freely, and the captors probably believed that themselves. After all, the journos could have chosen to be killed instead. Likewise Aqeel Masih could have chosen freely to keep his arms and convert to Islam. Instead, he chose freely to remain a Christian and lose his arms.
“Lahore: man had arms chopped off ‘after refusing to convert to Islam,'” by James Macintyre, Christian Today, July 14, 2016:
A Christian man in Lahore reportedly had his arms chopped off after refusing to denounce Jesus and convert to Islam while in the hands of fanatics.According to Legal Evangelical Association Development (LEAD), a Christian organisation in Pakistan, Aqeel Masih, who worked at a petrol station in the LDA quarter area of Lahore, was kidnapped by Islamists before having his armed severed.“[The] extremists exerted pressure on him to abandon Christianity and convert to Islam,” LEAD said. “Aqeel however, did not give up on his Christian faith and refused to comply with their demand. Notwithstanding…his rebuttal, they chopped off his both arms, and absconded.”Masih has reportedly filed a lawsuit against the extremists. Yesterday, he appeared at the Ghalib Market police station where police moved him away from inquiring media representatives.Meanwhile, a senior police investigator told The Nation that three suspects are being held over the incident but the official denied the story about extremists cutting off Masih’s arms because he refused to convert to Islam.Instead, police officer Ammara Athar claimed that police believed that Masih’s arms were “chopped off in a train accident”.“The circumstantial evidences do not support the claims of the victim. Apparently, it seemed that the man lost his arms in a train accident,” Athar said. “We have yet to testify the claim of Aqil, we believe his arms were chopped off in a train accident.”The Nation reported that police sources said Masih is an “addict” who due to a drug overdose went near the train which chopped off his arms.
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