Contemptuous comments: G-B institutes first-ever blasphemy case

Police officials did not specify the man’s denomination, but said he was ‘not a Christian’.

GILGIT:

Gilgit-Baltistan joined the league of the country’s other self-righteous areas after the region’s first-ever blasphemy case was registered against a man who allegedly passed “contemptuous comments against the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh)”.

“A case has been registered under the blasphemy law against Yaqoob, son of Taifur Shah,” Sultan Azam, the superintendent police [SP] told reporters outside the city police station where hundreds of protesters blocked the main road, calling for punishing the alleged accused.

Without being specific, a police official said that the man was not a Christian. Abdur Rauf, a resident of Kondas in Gilgit, had submitted an application with the city police station in the evening saying he was a witness to the crime.

Yaqoob is said to be a resident of Ghizer Valley, which is about 75 kilometres from Gilgit.

SP Azam said that the man had been arrested and police had started an investigation into the case. The incident was reported at about 5.30 pm in Kondodas and the news spread like wildfire.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the police station, calling for the man’s immediate arrest. As the crowd grew larger, shopkeepers closed their shops in anticipation of violence. The crowd, however, dispersed peacefully after police registered a case under the sections 295, 296, 298, 500, 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code (blasphemy law).

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2011.