Top court upholds LHC order to drop charges against 27 blasphemy accused

ATC had sentenced a man to death, 26 others to life.

ISLAMABAD: The country’s top court upheld on Monday the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) 2009 decision to drop blasphemy charges against 27 men in Faisalabad.

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) had sentenced Shahbaz Ahmed to death and 26 others to life in 2005 on blasphemy, murder and terrorism charges.

The ATC had found Ahmed and his ‘followers’ guilty of blasphemy, attacking police officials, harassment and using illegal weapons.

Four years later, however, the LHC dropped their blasphemy charges and commuted Ahmed’s death sentence to life.



The prosecution claims that Ahmed — who had returned to Pakistan in 2004 after spending many years in England and started living with his friends in Karachi — had convinced his friends that he was Imam Mehdi.

“They went to Faisalabad in December 2005 and announced on loudspeakers that Imam Mehdi had appeared. They also fired at people and the police, and warned everyone that if Ahmed was not accepted as Imam Mehdi, the entire country would be destroyed by an earthquake.

“When the police arrived on the scene, Ahmed and his followers opened fire on the law enforcers. But Ahmed’s own accomplices Naveed, Tahir, Babar Shafi and Abid were wounded in the gunfight. Later, Babar succumbed to his injuries.”

Announcing its judgment on Monday, the three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali, observed that except Ahmed, all the convicts had unanimously taken the plea that they had staged a peaceful procession against Riaz Gohar Shahi, whom they considered Dajjal, and Ahmed had ‘rescued them from his clutches’.

A procession was, therefore, staged in celebration under the command of Ahmed, who claims to be Imam Mehdi, added the bench.

“The evidence brought on record by the prosecution, bald, vague and in general terms, the commission of offence under [blasphemy] sections ... by the appellants, other than appellant Shahbaz Ahmed, is not proved up to the mark...”

The judgment read that the conviction of all the appellants under other provisions of law awarded by the trial court, as modified by the appellate court, were upheld.

“As a result they will be entitled for the benefit of all the remissions and benefits of Section 382-B [which concerns period of detention to be considered while awarding sentence of imprisonment] from the date of their arrest.” The jail authorities will be informed accordingly, added the SC verdict.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd,  2016.