Man shot dead during blasphemy trial in Pakistan
By Daniel Uria
July 29 (UPI) --
Police in Peshawar said:
"The culprit accepts responsibility for killing him and says that he killed him for having committed blasphemy," police official Ijaz Ahmed said. "[The suspect] has been arrested from the scene."
Footage of the shooting showed the alleged gunman sitting on a bench under police guard saying he was told to do it in a dream.
Naseem had been in police custody since 2018 when he was accused of committing blasphemy by claiming to be a prophet.
He is a member of the Ahmedi sect, which is persecuted in Pakistan where they have officially been declared non-Muslims.
The shooting took place at a high-security complex next to the Peshawar high court.
“I was sitting on my seat in the office around 11.30 when I heard the firing,” said Saeed Zaher, a lawyer, who rushed to the site of the attack, and said the victim appeared to have been shot once in the head. “The killer was caught by the police and the body was lying on a bench within the courtroom.”
65 people murdered for blasphemy
No one has been executed under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, but at least 77 people have been murdered in extrajudicial killings and mob violence since 1990.
Saeed Zaher, a lawyer who was present at the courthouse during the shooting, said members of the public are allowed to observe trials, but for his attacker to smuggle in a weapon represents a serious security breach.
Well, no kidding! Especially when it's a blasphemy trial and the likelihood of something like this happening is very high. Makes one wonder if the police are utterly incompetent, or even complicit?
"A person entering with a pistol and murdering someone within a courtroom is very disturbing," Zaher said.
Footage circulating on social media appeared to show the alleged killer, sitting barefoot on a bench under police guard, claiming he had been ordered in a dream to kill Naseem. He also attacked judges who hear blasphemy cases.
Blasphemy is an enormously sensitive charge in Pakistan, a criminal offence that can carry the death penalty, yet which is sometimes used to settle personal scores, and has become extremely difficult for the justice system to handle.
Mere accusations have prompted mob violence and lynchings; lower-court judges feel unable to acquit defendants for fear of their lives; even a supreme court justice recused himself from a 2016 trial.
While the state has never executed anyone under blasphemy laws, at least 17 people convicted of blasphemy are on death row, and many others are serving life sentences for related offences.
The case of Asia Bibi, a Christian farm labourer who endured a decade-long ordeal over the accusation she had insulted the prophet Mohammed in a dispute with neighbours, drew international attention to the problem of the laws.
Bibi was originally sentenced to death in 2010, though that verdict was later overturned. In 2011, the governor of Punjab province, Salmaan Taseer, and the minorities minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, were murdered after they spoke in defence of Bibi and called for reform of blasphemy laws.
She was eventually given asylum in Canada but still receives death threats.
Since 1990, vigilantes have been accused of murdering 65 people tied to blasphemy, according to research compiled by the Pakistani thinktank the Centre for Research and Security Studies.
There was no comment from the government, a silence that veteran activist Ibn Abdur Rehman said was damning.
“Religious fanaticism is becoming unbearable in Pakistan. People are being killed in the name of religion. There is no check and balance. The government is clearly silent on this matter. This silence makes the government the culprit,” said Rehman, honorary spokesman for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Indian Consulate in Dubai helps woman after her appeal on Twitter about domestic abuse
Mission to facilitate repatriation of young mother who alleged abuse
Sajila Saseendran, Senior Reporter, Gulf News
Domestic violence
Dubai: The Indian Consulate in Dubai has offered support to repatriate an Indian woman in the UAE who complained of domestic abuse and sought help in a video that was posted on Twitter.
The video, put up on the social media platform by an Indian journalist, showed the woman in tears.
The woman alleged that she was being "beaten and mentally tortured" ever since she got married in April 2018.
Mother of a 13-month-old girl, she claimed she reached the UAE in January and was helpless. and could not contact police as she did not have a sim card.
“I am in danger. I am helpless. I don’t have money. I don’t have calling card to call my family. I just need justice. I am requesting you to please help me. Somebody please help me,” she said in the video.
Several Twitter users reacted to the video that went viral and sought immediate support for the woman.
Consulate intervenes
The Indian Consulate, which was also tagged in the video, responded saying that the mission was already extending support.
“We got a complaint...on 27th July and we had contacted her same dày and assured her of all possible assistance. She now desires to go back to India and we will make sure that she can leave for India at the earliest,” the consulate tweeted.
When contacted, Neeraj Agrawal, consul for Press, Information and Culture at the consulate, said: “We are in touch with the woman and her husband. We have asked him to return her passport and we are ready to facilitate her repatriation.”
This is not the first time that the mission has intervened in such a case.
Last year, the consulate assisted the repatriation of another woman, who had sought help. Her husband was arrested by Sharjah Police after her November 12 Twitter video, which went viral, showed her crying with one of her eyes bleeding.
Sharjah Police had also called on members of the public not to circulate such videos because of their negative impact.
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