January 7, 2025
Staff Report
LAHORE:
The Lahore High Court (LHC) has granted post-arrest bail to a young Christian boy, Akash Karamat, in a case registered under blasphemy-related sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). The FIR, filed under sections 295-A, 295-B, 295-C, and 298-A of the PPC, was lodged at a Police Station in Satellite Town, Sargodha, accusing Karamat of making derogatory remarks about revered Islamic figures.
The FIR was registered on July 16, 2023, after the complainant Abdul Ghaffar claimed that he discovered a paper with offensive writings pasted on the wall of his house upon returning from morning prayers. He alleged that a paper that contained derogatory remarks about the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H) and his wife, Ayesha (R.A.), was intended to hurt the sentiments of Muslims.
However Akash was not initially named in the FIR, he was nominated after one and a half months, following a supplementary statement recorded by the complainant on September 1, 2023.
Akash’s lawyer, Asad Jamal, told Voicepk that his client was under 17 years of age when he was arrested and should have been granted bail without delay, as per the Juvenile Justice System Act of 2018. Though a court order declared him a juvenile, he was denied bail by the trial court.
However, the trial court dismissed his bail petition, despite declaring him a juvenile through a court order in July 2024.
A single-member bench of the LHC, led by Justice Waheed Khan, granted post-arrest bail and noted, “No source regarding the involvement of the present petitioner has been mentioned in the supplementary statement. Nothing is available on record to show that any witness personally observed the alleged incident.”
“During the course of investigation, although pasting tape (scotch tape) has been recovered from possession of the petitioner but it hardly connects the petitioner with the commission of crime. The police have also recorded the statement of Qari Asif under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, but admittedly, he is also not the eye witness of occurrence”. The order read.
The police sent handwriting samples of the accused and the disputed paper containing derogatory remarks about the Holy Prophet (PBUH) to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency.
“The agency, in its report, concluded that no conclusions could be drawn from the provided evidence. Thus, the forensic report is negative in nature,” the court stated.
The court also highlighted that there had been no progress in the trial, making it unreasonable to keep the accused in custody. “It is noted that the petitioner has been in custody since his arrest. After the completion of the investigation, the report under Section 173 of the Cr.P.C. has been sent to the learned trial court, but since then, the trial has made no considerable progress. Therefore, his corporal custody is no longer required for this purpose, and he cannot be kept behind bars indefinitely without a determination of guilt by a court of competent jurisdiction.”
According to statistics from the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), nearly 3,000 people have been accused of blasphemy in Pakistan since 1987. The actual scale of abuse of these laws is believed to be even higher.
The CSJ also reported that hundreds of people were incarcerated in 2023, with 552 detained in Punjab alone. At least 350 individuals remained in prison as of June 2024, and 103 new cases of blasphemy were reported between January and June of the same year.
The National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR), in its report, revealed a stark increase in blasphemy-related incarcerations in recent years, with cases rising from just 11 in 2020 to 767 by mid-2024.
“This increase is particularly pronounced in Punjab, where cases surged dramatically, reaching 594 as of July 2024. In comparison, other provinces report far lower figures, with Sindh at 120 cases, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) at 64, and only two cases reported in Balochistan. This trend highlights not only a nationwide escalation but also positions Punjab as the epicenter of these charges, suggesting the need for focused examination of the systemic and regional factors involved,” the report stated.
Human rights activists have expressed concerns about the misuse of blasphemy laws and call for a closer examination of why these laws are being misused so frequently.