Blasphemy Cases
Local Police & Community Leaders Bring About Reconciliation Between Muslims & Christians
On February 3rd 2009 Pastor Shafique Anjum (35) his brother Naveed Aziz (17) were arrested in the district of Narowal. They were accused of blasphemy but no case was registered against them
When CLAAS’ fact finding team visited the prisoners they discovered that it was Naveed who was at the centre of the case being accused of blasphemy by his classmates at college.
One of the Muslim students told the teacher that Naveed had a pamphlet in his bag containing blasphemous words. The teacher asked Naveed to surrender the pamphlet and got angry with him. Later on the principle of the college got involved in the quarrel and the matter got out of hand with Muslim students asking that Naveed be expelled from college and sent to prison.
A week later when Muslim students from other colleges in Narowal heard about this case, they protested to the principal of high schools in their district to hand over the blasphemer to the police authorities. As the protest grew the angry mob went towards pastor Shafique’s and Naveed’s house wanting to burn it.
The police intervened and took the pastor and his brother to the police station.
When Mr Francis asked them why there has not been a case registered against Shafique and Naveed the police officer told them that the District Police Officer and the Deputy Superintendent were interested in brining about reconciliation between Muslims and Christians in the area.
Local police authorities decided to involve the Peace Committee at Narowal and other local community organisation’s leaders in the process of reconciling the angry protesters with the accused in the incident.
The good news is that a few days after the incident after several open forums in the community the Peace Committee declared in the presence of local authorities and other people that pastor Shafique and Naveed were innocent. They were released immediately.
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