In honour of his heroism and tremendous sacrifice he presented to safeguard other people, the Vatican graced a Pakistani boy called Akash Bashir with the ‘Servant of God’ title posthumously.
Akash Bashir, a lay Catholic and former student of Don Bosco Technical Institute of Lahore, put down his life while preventing a suicide bomber from entering a packed church in 2015, Vatican News said.
In a statement, Vicar General of the church, Father Francis Gulzar said, “A magnificent day for the Catholic Church in Pakistan. Akash volunteered his life as a sacrifice to save the lives of the Christian community at St. John’s Catholic Church, Youhanabad, Lahore.”
Born on 22 June 1994 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Nowshera, Akash died at 20, on March 15, 2015.
The attacks
Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside St. John’s Catholic Church and the adjoining Christ ‎Church of the Church of Pakistan in Lahore on March 15, 2015. 17 individuals were murdered and over 70 received injuries in the attacks.
