| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| Blasphemy accused Ahmadi man gunned down in Punjab |
| 2014-05-17 |
| [DAWN] ISLAMABAD: A teenager walked into a cop shoppe on Friday and rubbed out a 65-year-old man from a minority community accused of blasphemy in a Punjab village, their front man said, the second murder involving Pakistain's controversial blasphemy laws in as many weeks. Rights activists said the attack, and a spike in the number of blasphemy cases, was evidence of rising intolerance in the country. Victim Khalil Ahmad and three other Ahmadis had asked a shopkeeper in their village Sharaqpur -- about 55 km (33 miles) northwest of the Punjab capital, Lahore -- earlier this week to remove inflammatory stickers denouncing their community, said Saleemud Din, a front man for the Ahmadi community. In retaliation, the shopkeeper filed blasphemy charges against the four men on May 12. Ahmad, a father of four, was in police custody when the teenage boy walked in, asked to see him, and shot him dead, Din said. He said police told him that the shooter, a high school student, had been tossed in the slammer Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! Din said the lapse in security would have to be investigated. Pak police are notoriously poorly trained and security is often lax, critics say. "They told us the person who shot Mr. Khalil is just a boy," Din told Rooters. "The hate campaign carried out against us by the mullahs is going on and on and on." Ahmadis have been arrested in Pakistain for reading the Holy Koran, holding religious celebrations and having Koranic verses on rings or wedding cards. Four years ago, 86 Ahmadis were killed in two simultaneous attacks in Lahore. The colonial-era law does not define blasphemy but says it is punishable by death. Anyone can file a blasphemy case claiming their religious feelings are injured for any reason. The accused are often lynched, and lawyers and judges defending or acquitting them have been attacked. Rights groups say the laws are increasingly used to seize money or property. Two politicians who suggested reforming the law were killed, one by his own bodyguard. Lawyers showered the killer with rose petals when he came to court. The number of accusations is rising, according to a 2012 study by the Islamabad-based think tank, the Center for Research and Security Studies. In 2001, there was only one such complaint, but in 2011 there were 80. No more recent figures are available but 2014 looks set to be a record. Earlier this week, 68 lawyers were charged with blasphemy for using the name 'Umar' in protest slogans against a police official of the same name. Last week a prominent human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. lawyer defending a Pak university professor accused of blasphemy was shot and killed after being threatened in court by other lawyers. Advocate Rashid Rehman Khan had been representing the professor, who taught English and was accused by hardline student groups of making blasphemous remarks on his Facebook page in March 2013. |
| Posted by:Fred |