A Pakistani Christian man has been tortured to death for washing himself at a well belonging to a Muslim landowner, according to an organisation dedicated to highlighting and opposing persecution of Christians in Pakistan.

Saleem Masih, 22, was a labourer from Baguyana village, Kasur District, near Lahore. On 25 February, after unloading a farm vehicle, Masih washed himself in a nearby well. When the owner of the well, Sher Dogar, discovered he was a Christian, he began to beat Masih with a stick, shouting anti-Christian slurs.

Masih was dragged to a cattle farm and beaten with sticks and iron rods; with his hands tied and feet chained, his captors rolled a thick iron rod over his whole body, causing multiple fractures in his ribs and left arm. After being tortured in this manner for hours, Masih fell unconscious from the pain.

The following morning, the local police gave Masih’s location to his family, who found the unconscious Masih, severely injured, lying where he had been tortured. The police, who had been called to the farm by Dogar, encouraged the family not to take the issue further. Dogar asserted that Masih had committed a crime by dirtying his well water and so he had been justly punished. Masih died from his wounds at Lahore’s General Hospital on 28 February.

Kasur district is known for violent persecution of Christians by Muslims. In 2014 Sajjad Mesih and his wife Shama, a Christian couple in their 30s, were burned alive in a brick kiln by a Muslim mob for allegedly desecrating pages of the Qu’ran. Shama was expecting her fifth child.

There are around four million Christians in Pakistan, 2% of the total population of 200 million.