Federal agents in Pakistan have arrested at least six Christian youths, including the son of two renowned pastors, for allegedly establishing an illegal call center and committing credit card fraud involving American citizens, Christian Daily International has learned.
A First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Cybercrime Wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Jan. 29 states that a raid conducted on a house in the posh Defense Housing Authority (DHA) neighborhood in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh province, uncovered an illegal call center allegedly owned by Yateer Gill and three others.
Gill, 28, is the son of prominent Christian apologist and pastor of the Church of Pakistan, the Rev. Shafique Kanwal, and the Rev. Ghazala Shafique, also a pastor and a leading human rights activist who garnered attention after launching Pakistan’s first church for transgender persons.
“The accused persons, including Yateer Gill, Philemon Johnson, Romail Nayyar, Sharoon Daniel, Abia Shaleem, Shahroz Mahboob, Muhammad Kashif and others, were found involved in making fraud calls by impersonating themselves as representatives of foreign banks and conducting unauthorized/illegal balance transfers and extracting personal/critical information without authorization/consent of U.S. cardholders,” the FIR states.
It continues to state that the accused obtained Social Security numbers, cell phone numbers, and other personal details, including bank accounts and credit cards, and used them to buy merchandise from various online vendors.
According to the FIR, the accused also failed to present any legal permission for operating the call center.
“Examination of the electronic/digital gadgets revealed that the accused were involved in electronic financial fraud by falsifying electronic signatures, manipulating financial records, and creating false authorizations,” the FIR states, adding that the equipment was seized for further technical investigation.
Sources told Christian Daily International that all the arrested accused had been remanded to FIA custody for interrogation. The investigating officer of the case, Sub-Inspector Ahmed Khan Mirani, could not be reached for comment.
In a brief comment to Christian Daily International, the Rev. Ghazala Shafique rejected the charges against her son, claiming that he had been falsely implicated in the case.
“My son is the real victim here because someone has defrauded millions of rupees from his bank account. He was preparing to file a case against the fraud, but the perpetrator trapped him in this false case to prevent him from pursuing the matter,” she claimed. The pastor declined to comment further, saying she trusted God to rescue her son from the “false accusation.”
“This is not the first time my husband and I have faced false criminal cases and propaganda, including accusations of blasphemy and other crimes. Unfortunately, there are also people within our community who are opposed to us because we have always raised our voices against corruption and injustice in the Pakistani church.
“They have repeatedly attempted to put my life in danger by tagging me as an ‘Ahmadi’ and have propagated that I’m promoting a ‘Qadyani’ [derogatory term for Ahmadis] agenda in the Church,” she said. Ahmadis consider themselves a branch of Islam but are considered heretical by Pakistani Muslims, and Ahmadi worship places are often attacked by Islamist groups.
“These Christians have now again launched a vicious campaign against us on social media, spreading fake news that my husband and I are also involved in this case,” she lamented.
Shafique founded the First Church for Eunuchs in the courtyard of her house in 2020, garnering praise from human rights activists and secular media. However, her efforts with the hierarchy of the Church of Pakistan, a united Protestant Church of Anglican, Methodist, and Reformed Churches, to get her church recognized have not been successful to date.
A rare female pastor in Pakistan, she is also a staunch human rights advocate and one of the key organizers of the Minorities Day March in Karachi, held every year on Aug. 11. She also runs a shelter for minor Christian girls who have been rescued from their Muslim abductors, who forcibly convert and marry them to cover their crime of sexual exploitation.
