Fearing Islamist rage, residents in an area of Lahore on Nov. 3 fled their homes after a Christian was arrested under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, sources said.
Panic spread in Ward No. 12 of Kahna in Lahore, Punjab Province, after area Muslims accused Zafar Iqbal of setting fire to quranic pages in the courtyard of his house, said rights activist Napolean Qayyum.
“As news spread, many Christian families locked their homes and left for safer places, fearing a Jaranwala-type attack on their homes,” he said.
The complainant in the First Information Report (FIR) registered by Kahna police, Qari Mujahid Abbas Fareedi, imam of the Noorani Mosque in Kahna, said he was at the mosque after leading the afternoon prayers when two local Muslims told him Iqbal was burning pages of the Quran in the courtyard of his house, according to the FIR.
“According to the complainant, when he and the other Muslims went to Iqbal’s house, they found him standing next to the burning papers,” Qayyum said. “He claimed that when they sifted through the burnt pages, they found that they were from the Quran.”
The FIR states that the complainant and other Muslims immediately took Iqbal into custody and called police, Qayyum said.
Many Christian residents fled their homes as news of the alleged blasphemy spread, and members of Islamist outfits, including the extremist Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), started gathering there, he said.
“The residents feared that the situation could turn violent, so they left as a precaution,” Qayyum said. “However, timely intervention by senior officials and arrest of the suspect helped in placating the religious activists and thwarting any violence against other Christians.”
Christian families began returning to their homes, he added.
Iqbal was charged under Section 295-B of Pakistan’s widely condemned blasphemy statutes, which prescribes a life term in prison for Quran desecration.
“Iqbal is now in prison on judicial remand, while his family has gone into hiding and are inaccessible,” Qayyum said. “Iqbal is over 40 years old and has three children. He is also said to be suffering from some mental illness. The situation will become clearer when we make contact with his family.”
Christian lawyer Lazar Allah Rakha said that if reports of Iqbal being mentally challenged were true, then he would not be fit to stand trial or be punished under the law.
“A medical board should be formed to ascertain his mental health, and he should be discharged from the charges if it is found that he is not of sound mind,” said Rakha, who has successfully defended several persons accused of blasphemy.
Multiple churches and homes of Christians were ransacked and burned by Muslim mobs in Jaranwala, Faisalabad District, Punjab Province on Aug. 16, 2023, after two Christian brothers were accused of desecrating the Quran and writing blasphemous content. The charges were dismissed in March after a court learned that another Christian had falsely accused them.
‘Blasphemy Business’
Mere allegations of blasphemy in Muslim-majority Pakistan can ignite public outrage and sometimes result in mob violence. Hundreds of people have been accused and jailed for alleged blasphemy, and some were handed the death penalty, though none has been executed so far.
An investigative report by Pakistan’s National Commission for Human Rights issued on Oct. 31 revealed that a steep increase in blasphemy cases this year, many of them filed against Christians and other religious minorities, is tied to collusion between Muslim vigilantes and federal investigators.
Pakistan saw three times as many blasphemy cases in the first seven month of this year compared with all of last year, according to the NCHR investigation.
As of July 25, there were 767 people accused of blasphemy languishing in jails across Pakistan, whereas in 2023 there were 213 suspects incarcerated for blasphemy, 64 in 2022, nine in 2021 and 11 in 2020, according to the data gathered by the NCHR.
“Most of the blasphemy cases were registered with the Federal Investigation Agency’s Cybercrime Unit in collaboration with a private entity,” the NCHR noted, adding that young men were targeted through entrapment tactics involving females using pseudonyms to lure them into blasphemous activities online.
At least 594 blasphemy suspects were imprisoned in Punjab Province alone, followed by 120 in Sindh Province, 64 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and two in Balochistan Province, the NCHR added.
The report follows a study by the Special Branch of the Punjab Police released in January, which for the first time revealed the presence of a “blasphemy business” that exploits the controversial blasphemy laws to entrap victims for extortion.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee on Oct. 17 observed that Pakistani authorities have failed to curb a range of human rights violations, including a sharp increase in blasphemy-related violence. Expressing serious concern over frequent attacks against religious minorities, including accusations of blasphemy, targeted killings, lynchings, mob violence, forced conversions, and desecration of places of worship, the committee stated that Pakistani society has become increasingly intolerant of religious diversity.
“Religious minorities are facing a constant threat of persecution and discrimination amid the rise of religious radicalism,” the committee stated.
Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, as it was the previous year.
