Faith trial: SHO issued notice in blasphemy case

Police have not appeared in court or produced a record.

LAHORE:

An additional district and sessions judge issued a show cause notice on Tuesday to the Green Town SHO for not producing the police record for the bail petition of a suspect accused of blasphemy. 

Petitioner Asif Parvaiz had allegedly used derogatory language about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the Holy Quran.

At previous hearings the court has sought police record but it has not been provided. The court had directed the SHO last week to produce a record of the case at the next hearing.Parvaiz said in his petition that he was innocent and had not committed the alleged offences. Saeed Ahmed Khokhar had registered case against Parvaiz under sections 295/A,295/B,295/C and 25-D of the Telegraph Act in Green Town police station on September 25, 2013.

Parvaiz said the prosecution’s story was false. He said that he and the complainant had been working at the same factory and he had filed a false case due to a personal grudge.

According to the FIR, the complainant received a number of blasphemous text messages from Parvaiz. Parvaiz claimed that his mobile phone had been stolen a month and a half before the FIR was registered. Parvaiz’s counsel argued that he was entitled to post-arrest bail.

Advocate Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhary, counsel for the complainant, told the court that the accused had committed blasphemy as they had a record of his messages. The petitioner claimed that he did not send the messages and that he had been framed.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2014.