LHC to take up blasphemy convicts’ appeal on Feb 20

Advocate Saiful Malook, who pleaded Aasia Bibi’s case, will appear on behalf of Christian couple

ISLAMABAD: The Lahore High Court (LHC) will take up on next Thursday, Feb 20, appeal of a Christian couple, which is on the death row for committing blasphemy for the last six years.

A division bench, headed by Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmad Khan, will hear the appeal filed Shaguta Kausar and her husband, Shafqat Masih.

Saiful Malook Advocate, who successfully pleaded the case of Aasia Bibi – a Christian woman convicted for blasphemy and later acquitted after spending nearly nine years in prison – will represent the couple.
Malook told The Express Tribune that he has submitted his papers of attorney (Vakalatnama) in the LHC to plead their case, saying he has already met Kausar at Multan jail.

“Kausar is in the same death cell, where Aasia Bibi was imprisoned before her acquittal by the Supreme Court in October 2018,” he said.
An additional district and sessions judge at Toba Tek Singh awarded capital punishment to Kausar and Shafqat on April 4, 2014. They were convicted under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) read with Section 34 of the PPC. They were also directed to pay Rs100,000 fine each.

The complainant in the case was Muhammad Hussain, a resident of Gojra.

According to Hussain, he received an SMS, containing blasphemous remarks on July 18, 2013, when he was offering prayers at a mosque. He showed the SMS to his friends – Muhammad Shabbir and Khalid Maqsood.

Later, he approached his counsel for legal proceedings on the basis of the said SMS.

While sitting in the office of his counsel, he received five more SMS. When the counsel tried to contact the number, he (the lawyer) also received three to four SMS on his mobile phone.

The police claimed that both the convicts confessed to committing blasphemy.

After the investigation, police submitted a report under Section 173 CrPC, declaring that the couple was involved in the commission of an offence and would face trial.
On the conclusion of the trial, the couple on April 4, 2014 was convicted and awarded death sentence.
Five years ago, the couple had challenged the trial court’s order on many grounds.

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Their appeal contended that the witnesses produced by the prosecution during the trial were related to the complainant and were ‘inimical’ towards them.
“So their statements required independent corroboration, which is lacking in this case,” the appeal said.

Motive
The convicts also claimed that about eight to nine months prior to the case, a minor quarrel had taken place between their children and those of the neighbours, who developed a grudge against them.
Kausar was working at the Bishop Compound and the copy of her national identity card was available in record of the compound, where the neighbour was also working.

He succeeded in obtaining the copy of her CNIC and purchased the alleged SIM in her name and later misused that SIM and forwarded the alleged blasphemous SMS to the complainant, who was hand in glove with their neighbour.

The prosecution; however, claimed that the alleged SIM was purchased by Kausar along with her husband. The convicts denied the charge, saying that the husband, Shafqat Masih, is a disabled person since long and could not move or walk.

They contended that there was no evidence that they purchased the SIM from a franchise, adding that the convicts were illiterate persons and could not write the alleged SMS, which was written in English.
The appeal also contended that Section 196 CrPC had not been followed as the FIR was lodged by a private person, who was not the competent authority nor duly authorised by the central or provincial governments.

It stated that the evidence produced by the prosecution is “discrepant, shaky and not worth reliance”.

The appeal stated that the trial court did not appreciate the defence version in its true prospective, which resulted in grave miscarriage of justice. “The learned judge has based his judgment on surmises and conjectures instead of solid evidence,” it adds.

After the passage of five years, the appeal was ordered before an LHC division bench, led by Justice Aalia Neelum, on February 7, 2019 but it was left over. The matter was again listed in June last year but it was again left over.