On 13 January Model Town police station, Lahore, registered a blasphemy case under section 295 -A, B and C, Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which has a mandatory death penalty, against two young Christians, Haroon Ayub Masih and Salamat Mansha Masih.

The complainant, Haroon Ahmad, said in his statement that while he was sitting in Model Town Park with his friends Harris Khalid, Zakir Ali and Zulqarnain, two Christian boys approached them, introduced themselves as Haroon Ayub and Salamat Mansha and handed over a copy of a Christian booklet “Water of Life” and started preaching about Christianity.

They further said that the boys used derogatory remarks against the prophet (PBUH) and the Holy Quran.

Ahmad further told the police that Mansha Masih repeated his derogatory remarks, hurting their religious feelings. Ahmad said such words against Islam and their disrespect of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is an act of terrorism and intentionally committing a blasphemy against Islam and the prophet (PBUH), therefore a case should not just be registered against Haroon and Mansha but the whole group involved in distributing this literature should be arrested and also this whole blasphemous literature should be confiscated.

According to a senior police officer police Haroon Ayub is on pre-arrest bail while Salamat Mansha has escaped. He further stated that the pre-arrest bail is fixed for confirmation on February 27th 2021 and if both the accused do not show up by that time to record their statement, then the police will make their efforts to arrest them.

Because of the sensitivity of the case, the investigation has been assigned to Mr. Asim Ifitkhar, Superintendent of Police. He informed the CLAAS-PK team that he will try his best to find the truth during his investigation and determine whether blasphemy has been committed. He said he will protect the innocent and if found guilty he will follow the law.

He said that up to date the police have not harassed any of the nominated persons in this case.