Rimsha case: Cleric Khalid Chisti acquitted

Eye-witnesses said they made different statements earlier due to various pressures.


Web Desk August 17, 2013
Khalid Chisti. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court acquitted prime suspect Khalid Chisti of all charges as 6 out of 8 eyewitnesses changed their statements in court, Express News reported on Saturday.

Eye-witnesses said they made different statements earlier due to various pressures.

The cleric was accused of adding pages from the Holy Quran to ashes seized from 14-year-old Rimsha Masih to implicate her and make the case stronger.

Three witnesses who had testified against the cleric had later backtracked from their statements saying that the police had “forced” them to testify on October 10, 2012.

Rimsha was arrested under the blasphemy laws from the outskirts of Islamabad on August 16, 2012 after a mob of angry residents gathered at the Ramna Police Station and accused her of burning pages of the Holy Quran.

The charges against Rimsha led to the exodus of dozens of Christian families from the neighbourhood after cleric Chishti, the imam of a mosque, allegedly issued a decree on his mosque’s loudspeaker to burn Christians of the Mehrabadi village alive.

COMMENTS (41)

Maqbool Basha | 10 years ago | Reply

The CJ should order retrial of the case if he is interested in carrying out justice at all.

A. Etchen | 10 years ago | Reply

For the follies of subordinates, heads must be held responsible. Seeing gross systemic errors, either they should take steps to correct them or resign. For all the miscarriages of justice in the cases of persecution of non-Muslims, the Chief Justice must be held responsible. He should accept responsibility on his own. All the judges of the Supreme Court should also take collective responsibility and stop this breakdown of the justice system. They should also withdraw lisences from those lawyers who sign statements asking clemency for killers in the name of blasphemy.

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