Source/Credit: Daily Times | Pakistan
By Asghar Azad | January 2, 2012
Pending blasphemy cases issue: Govt of Pakistan orders arrest of all accused and their production in courts
KARACHI: The federal government has instructed provinces to submit the details of pending cases registered under blasphemy law during 2010-11 and directed the authorities concerned to arrest those involved in such cases immediately, besides producing them before the courts, Daily Times has learnt.
Sources privy to the matter informed that the government was of the view that such cases should be resolved on priority basis.
“Several departments, especially all four provincial home departments, have been given directives to arrest all the culprits nominated in blasphemy cases immediately and to inform the federal government with the developments and proceedings in the cases”, sources claimed.
The officials of the Sindh law department on the condition of anonymity informed that according to a report received from police officials, some 32 blasphemy cases were registered during 2010-11 in the province, which were still pending as the law enforcement agencies were still struggling to arrest the accused.
“Some of the blasphemers, including Raheel Masood Wasti, Samreen Masood, Zafar Iqbal, Khalid Masood, Kalson Amir, Waseem Khokhar and Amar Ali had reportedly fled the country for the sake of international protection”, officials from the law department claimed.
It is pertinent to mention here that over 960 people had been charged with blasphemy in Pakistan from 1980 to 2009. Of these, 479 were Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus and 10 miscellaneous faiths. Religious fundamentalists and extremists in the country also killed hundreds of people extra-judicially.
Since Zia-ul-Haq’s regime and from early1980s, at least 32 under-trial prisoners and even many of those acquitted on charges of blasphemy have been extra-judicially killed by mobs inside prisons or outside courtrooms. On the other hand, at least two judges have been assassinated for acquitting individuals accused of blasphemy.
In 1997, Lahore High Court Judge Arif Iqbal Bhatti, who had acquitted two Christians in a blasphemy case, was shot dead as he left the court.
Whereas a large number of people flee abroad every year for protecting their lives after facing life threats for being involved in blasphemy cases.
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