his captors, the evangelical CharismaNOW news service reported Tuesday, June 15. CharismaNOW quoted the Reuters news agency as saying that Wilson Fazal, 41, who pastors a church in the city of Quetta, disappeared May 16 after receiving threatening letters from an unknown group of Islamists who urged him to convert to Islam or face unspecified consequences.
Fazal told police that he had been kidnapped and taken to the northwestern city of Peshawar, about 375 miles( about 600 kilometers) northeast of Quetta, when he managed to escape recently. No details of his escape were immediately available, CharismaNOW said.
Fazal’s son, Jerry, told Reuters that a hand-written letter delivered to their home in early May warned Wilson to stop preaching Christianity. A group calling itself Mahaz-e-Jihad, or "Frontier of the Holy War" sent the letter.
"GET READY"
"Get ready, ready, ready, or else…," said the letter which had a hand-drawn rifle for a signature at the bottom, Reuters explained.
About 70,000 of Quetta’s population of 1.5 million are Christian. They have largely lived in harmony with the Muslim population, even though the city is also home to hard-line Islamic militants opposed to religious tolerance and the United States-led war in neighboring Afghanistan, CharismaNOW reported
Yet the kidnapping has underscored concern among human rights groups about growing pressure on Pakistan’s Christian minority. Several Christians, including foreign missionary workers, have been killed in recent Islamic violence. Islamic extremists have linked Christians to the American led international crackdown on terror. Less than 3 percent of the country’s over 135 million people are Christians, according to official records.
