Yaqub’s family waited two years for justice. csi
The verdict is a rare outcome for a religious minority family in a country where Christians and other non-Muslim communities routinely face obstacles in obtaining legal redress, particularly when the perpetrators belong to the Muslim majority.
Additional Sessions Judge Syed Shazad Muzaffar Hamdani of Lahore delivered the sentencing on May 13, 2026. The ruling brought relief to the family of Marshal Yaqub, who was killed on July 10, 2024 at his home in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, aged 30.
Yaqub was murdered in apparent retaliation after he filed a formal complaint with police against neighbors who were drinking alcohol, discharging firearms in a residential area, and disturbing the peace. Four armed men entered Yaqub’s house that evening by climbing onto an adjoining rooftop and breaking into his bedroom. There they opened fire, killing Yaqub instantly and wounding his wife, Maggie.
A First Information Report, or FIR, the formal document through which a criminal case is initiated in Pakistan’s legal system, was registered at Race Course Police Station, Lahore, on the day of the murder, under sections covering murder, house-breaking with intent to cause harm, and causing bodily injury.
A family without resources
Yaqub was the sole financial provider for his family, which included four young children and his three sisters. His death left Maggie without income, and the cost of a two-year criminal trial would have been beyond her means without outside support. Christian Solidarity International (CSI) provided full legal representation and covered the family’s legal costs throughout the proceedings.
Pakistan’s 2023 census recorded 3.3 million Christians, or 1.37 percent of a total population of 241 million, against a Muslim population of about 231.7 million, or 96.35 percent of the country. Punjab province where Lahore is located, has a population of about 127.7 million, of whom about 2.46 million, or 1.9 percent, are Christian, with the remainder overwhelmingly Muslim.
Christians are among the country’s most economically marginalized communities. Many work in low-wage manual occupations, and their concentration in informal or daily-wage employment leaves them particularly exposed when a household’s primary earner dies or is incapacitated.
Access to legal representation in criminal proceedings is effectively contingent on financial resources and social standing that few families possess. Furthermore, a Christian lodging a formal complaint against Muslim neighbors is an act that carries social and legal risks.
Rare instance of justice delivered
The family’s determination to pursue the case through 22 months of legal proceedings forced the system to deliver justice that Christian families in Pakistan rarely receive.
Of the four men charged, Sultan Mehmood died in custody on January 15, 2026 after contracting tuberculosis. The remaining three, Sajjad ul Hassan, 33, Muhammad Azam, 24, and Muhammad Mubashir, 22, were found guilty on all charges.
All three received a life sentence and a fine of PKR 500,000 ($1,800). For the attempted murder and injuries inflicted on Maggie, each received an additional 12 years’ imprisonment and a fine of PKR 90,000 ($320).
A pattern of vulnerability
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, though not related to Yaqub’s killing, have over decades created a social environment in which violence against Christians who challenge or inconvenience Muslims is rarely punished severely enough to deter it.
In July 2025, a group of UN human rights experts that included Nazila Ghanea, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, called on Pakistan’s government to take concrete measures to prevent extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and attacks against religious minorities.
The experts warned that attacks on minority communities were taking place with tacit official complicity and said Pakistan must break a pattern of impunity that had allowed perpetrators of violence to act without restraint. They noted that while arrests and court proceedings had occurred in some cases, sentencing had consistently failed to meet the gravity of offences, allowing many perpetrators to avoid accountability.
The conviction of Yaqub’s killers represents an exception to that pattern.
Rebuilding after loss
Recognizing that a conviction alone could not undo the damage the murder had done to the family’s livelihood, CSI provided support for Maggie after the trial concluded. She received professional training as a beautician along with equipment to establish her own salon, giving her a sustainable source of income to support her four children.
The life sentences handed to each convict may represent a significant outcome for a Christian victim’s family in Pakistan, but reaching that point required financial support that most families in similar situations would never receive.
The larger barriers to accessing justice point to a structural problem that this court ruling, however important for Yuqub’s family, does not solve.
