CAT/C/34/D/222/2002 page 7 the article to cover cases in which torture is inflicted by a third party. The Committee has held that “the issue whether the State party has an obligation to refrain from expelling a person who might risk pain or suffering inflicted by a non-governmental entity, without the consent or acquiescence of the Government, falls outside the scope of article 3 of the Convention”. 4 4.15 The State party explains that there have been instances of serious violence against churches and other Christian institutions in Pakistan, but they are certainly not tolerated by the authorities. President Musharraf publicly condemned the tragic attack in Islamabad in August 2002, following which the police arrested 27 Islamic extremists. The police arrested four suspects after an attack in Lahore in December 1992, one of them a Muslim clergyman. Furthermore, the Pakistani Government has arranged better protection for Christian places of worship against extremist acts. The Protestant International Church in Islamabad, for instance, is one of the best protected buildings in Pakistan. And in recent months, the Pakistani Government has outlawed seven Muslim fundamentalist organizations. 5 4.16 Given the Pakistani Government’s reactions to serious violence against Christian churches, it can hardly be argued, in the State party’s view, that the Government condones the violence or is loath to protect Christians. A mere claim by the complainant that the police “will afford him no protection against attempts on his life [by his former fellow students and Muslim Students Federation supporters]” gives no grounds for concluding otherwise. In the current case, the condition ratione personae is not met. 4.17 Lastly, the State party wholeheartedly endorses the grounds on which the Swiss Asylum Review Commission found that the complainant’s allegations lacked credibility. It believes that the complainant’s statements emphatically do not suggest there are substantial grounds for believing, in keeping with article 3, paragraph 1, of the Convention, that the complainant would be in danger of being tortured if sent back to Pakistan. Complainant’s comments on the State party’s observations 5.1 In a letter dated August 2002, the complainant stands by the points made in his initial complaint. 5.2 He also relates the difficulties he faced in living in Pakistan after escaping from the police station in Lahore in early January 1999. He explains that he had to go into hiding between January and July 1999 at his family’s second home in Johannabad, where he lived with the doors locked and windows darkened, being supplied with food in secret by his father while avoiding being spotted by the neighbours. His uncle had then hidden him for a month in Karachi. 5.3 On the subject of his passport, the complainant explains that it is customary in Pakistan to employ a go-between to deal with the formalities of obtaining a passport. That is what his father had done; it did not diminish the danger he had been in. 5.4 The complainant confirms that the police report of February 1998 refers to him as a Christian. He maintains, however, that his conversion to Islam was not known about outside the confines of the University of Lahore, which only discovered his apostasy in December 1998 and, thus, only informed the police sometime thereafter.