A 30-year-old daily wage labourer was brutally beaten to death in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district, Police said on Sunday (25th August). According to Police, nine individuals including a Pastor have been booked in this case. The victim was suffering from seizures and used to scream. When his family sought help from a pastor named Jacob Masih, the pastor along with eight others brutally thrashed the victim claiming to remove the devil from his body. However, the brutal assault resulted in the victim’s demise.
According to reports, the victim has been identified as Samuel Masih. He is a resident of Singhpura village in Gurdaspur’s Dhariwal. The Police said that he was suffering from seizures and used to scream.
They added that his family invited a local pastor identified as Jacob Masih to their home to hold a prayer for Samuel on Wednesday.
Pastor Jacob told them that Samuel was possessed by the devil and added that they would “force the devil away” from his body by beating him up. They had brainwashed the family by assuring them that nothing would happen to Masih.
Subsequently, pastor Jacob and eight others started beating Samuel Masih. Samuel was badly beaten and died on the spot. His family buried his body on the next day.
Two days after his demise, Samuel’s mother and his wife lodged a complaint against Pastor Jacob Masih and others.
On Saturday, Police exhumed his body for a post-mortem examination. Police stated that the entire exercise was conducted under the supervision of duty magistrate Inderjit Kaur.
Police officials further stated that a case has been registered against the pastor and eight others under the relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
It is pertinent to note that a similar incident was reported in the Atlanta area of the USA earlier this year on 9th January. Back then, a decomposed body of a South Korean woman was found in the trunk of a car. She was lured to the Atlanta area by a “religious organisation” with promises of “finding God”. As per reports, it was later found out that she was beaten to death by ‘Soldiers of Christ’ ‘to exorcise demon spirit’.
According to Fox News, the prosecutors stated that 33-year-old Sehee Cho was allegedly killed during a brutal initiation into the “Soldiers of Christ”. It is said to be a fanatic religious group which is led by two South Korean brothers.
Seven individuals, mostly family members were accused of holding Cho captive in their basement for weeks. During her captivity, they assaulted her with a belt, subjected her to ice baths, and starved her to death. Her body was found in September 2023.
Law enforcement believed that they had arrested all the “soldiers” involved in this case. Strikingly, the apprehensions of cult activity deeply unsettled “The Seoul of the South” which is a predominantly Korean community in Gwinnett County, Georgia. A cult expert had warned that similar groups may be operating covertly across the country.
