Yet another incident of blasphemy has been reported from Pakistan’s Lahore city. Here, two people a Christian woman and a Muslim man have been arrested by the police on alleged grounds of blasphemy. Both of them worked at a girls’ higher secondary school.
The woman identified as Musarat Bibi, an illiterate Christian woman and Mohammad Sarmand worked at the school in the city of Arif-Wala, in the Pakistani province of Punjab. Both of them were accused of desecrating the Quran.
Notably, the two were cleaning out the school warehouse cupboards, burning rubbish, old files, and unusable papers. A man at the school, Kashif Nadeem identified pages of the Quran among the burnt pieces left. When news spread that pages of the Quran had been burned, some students and teachers began protesting.
A Samaritan called up the police and the officials reached on the spot to investigate the matter. The school administration recounted the incident, removed the identified pages from Quran, and called the incident “completely unintentional”.
The police, however, arrested Musarat Bibi and Mohammad Sarmand for blasphemy, under article 295-b of the Pakistan Penal Code, which punishes contempt of the Quran.
Musarat, a widow, has three daughters, two of them are married while the youngest is 14 years old. The youngest one was brought to safety by other family members. Musarat worked at the school after the death of her husband, who was a teacher. Christians living in the Arif-Wala area fear for the safety of Musarat and the other Christian families living there, as in the past people simply accused of blasphemy were lynched by mobs of religious fanatics.
As per the local reports, the complainant Kashif Nadeem believes in “extremist religious ideology” and for him the woman Musarat is a Kaffir. He also holds grudges against the Christian employee because the school administration gave her the task of managing the school canteen which was previously managed by a relative of Kashif.
According to Javed Sohatara, a lawyer assisting the victim’s family said, “In Pakistan, the accusation of blasphemy is a life-threatening accusation. With this accusation, the man wanted to permanently remove Musarat Bibi from the school canteen and from work, and he succeeded”, he added.
“Community support is an important factor for the victim’s family: this could hopefully lead to a successful outcome of the case”, notes the lawyer.
Joseph Jansen who heads an NGO ‘Voice for Justice’ in Pakistan said, “Human rights violations in Pakistan are increasing on a large scale and that, in many cases, the laws on blasphemy serve as a pretext. violence is committed against women belonging to minority religious communities, namely Hindu and Christian women, and this violence remains unpunished”.
“In blasphemy cases, complainants and witnesses who have made false accusations, when proven, do not suffer the consequences and are not prosecuted for perjury. This provision, if it is implemented, could help change the climate of impunity and hold those involved accountable for accusations made to harm others. An action plan to end the misuse of this law, used against the most vulnerable, has been urgently needed for many years. In several cases, fanatical individuals have used this law to take justice into their own hands and lynch the accused,” added Jansen.
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