Pakistani Pastor Charged With Shooting Himself: Recent report has it that a pastor in Pakistan was accused of making false accusations by Pakistani police on Friday after he acknowledged that a gunshot wound he had initially attributed to Islamic extremists was actually self-inflicted.
In a police report, the Rev. Eleazar Sidhu, pastor of a Presbyterian church in Kukranwala village, in the Khanuwana neighborhood of Jaranwala, Faisalabad District, said that on September 3, Muslim extremists shot him when he refused to recite the Islamic creed.
On Sept. 13 after he “voluntarily confessed” to colleagues and friends that the injury was self-inflicted.
However, on September 14, a letter terminating Pastor Sidhu’s position from the Presbyterian Myong-Sang Nasreth Church in Kukranwala village, signed by the Rev. Altaf Khan on behalf of the Board of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan, surfaced on social media.
Pastor Sidhu admitted to “planning this whole act without any fear, duress or pressure,” Pastor Khan stated, adding that the church did not want to make “any conclusions since the matter is sub-judice,” but that it was ending his employment contract and any professional ties with him “until the matter comes to its logical conclusion.”
A video that appeared on social media the next day, Sept. 15, shows Pastor Sidhu making a confession in front of a police officer.
“I did it because of stress. I wanted police protection. I threw the pistol in a canal,” he claimed.
According to reports, the Muslim who supplied Pastor Sidhu the illegal.30-caliber weapon had also been arrested.