https://www.dawn.com/news/1523612 December 22, 2019
Shakeel
AhmedDecember 22, 2019
Junaid Hafeez was booked on a blasphemy charge on March 13,
2013. He was arrested the same day. — Dawn/File.
Junaid Hafeez — a
visiting lecturer at the Department of English Literature of the Bahauddin
Zakariya University (BZU), Multan — was booked on a blasphemy charge on March
13, 2013. He was arrested the same day.
The trial began in 2014
and the court reserved its verdict on Dec 18.
Additional District and
Sessions Judge Kashif Qayyum announced the decision on Saturday in the presence
of the accused at the New Central Jail.
The court found Hafeez
guilty of all charges and handed down 10-year imprisonment under Section 295-A
(deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any
class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs); life term under Section
295-B (defiling, etc, of Holy Quran) and death sentence under Section 295-C
(use of derogatory remarks, etc, in respect of the Holy Prophet) of the
Pakistan Penal Code.
It also imposed a
collective fine of Rs 600,000 and in case of default he would have to undergo
an additional one-year imprisonment.
“All the sentences shall
run consecutively and the accused would not be entitled to the benefit of
Section 382-B CrPC because in case of blasphemer, this court has got no
circumstance for taking lenient view and it is also not permitted in Islam,”
ruled the court.
Section 382-B of the
criminal procedure code says the length of any sentence of imprisonment imposed
upon an accused person in respect of any offence shall be treated as reduced by
any period during which he was detained in custody for such offence.
As many as 15
prosecution witnesses recorded their statements against Hafeez while 11 others
were not called for being declared irrelevant.
The hearings of the case
were held inside the prison due to security concerns.
In April 2014, the Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed serious concerns when death
threats were extended to Special Task Force Coordinator of the HRCP Rashid
Rehman Khan, who was representing Hafeez in court.
Mr Rehman and another
person appeared before the judge on April 9 and during the arguments for
acquittal, three persons addressed Mr Rehman in the judge’s presence and said:
“You will not come to court next time because you will not exist anymore.”
He drew the court’s
attention to the threat but the judge was reported to have remained silent.
Mr Rehman was gunned
down in the HRCP office on May 7 by unidentified gunmen. Chehliyak SHO Abbas
Gill was suspended from service over his failure to protect Mr Rehman despite
the fact that he and the HRCP complained to police about the threats he had
been receiving. On the report of the Chief Minister’s Inspection Team, then SSP
Operations Shaukat Abbas too was suspended.
In July 2015, another
lawyer for Hafeez submitted an application to police that he had been receiving
threats with a warning to withdraw himself from the case.
Also, the BZU
administration succumbed to the pressure of a religious group the next year and
removed Dr Sheerin Zubair, the chairperson of the English department, and
initiated an inquiry against her.
Meanwhile, the HRCP said
it was dismayed by the verdict handed down to academic Junaid Hafeez.
“The HRCP believes that
the blasphemy laws are heavily misused. This is compounded by a trial process
ridden by delays and pressures at the level of the lower judiciary. The offence
itself is already associated with vigilantism and entrenched impunity —
underscored by the 2014 murder of Hafeez’s lawyer, Rashid Rehman. The resulting
pressure on lower courts becomes apparent when most such verdicts are
overturned by the High Court or Supreme Court,” it says.
The HRCP reposed its
faith in the higher judiciary and expressed hope that “the verdict will be
overturned in appeal”.
Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2019
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