The Islamabad police have arrested a prayer leader for fabricating evidence to implicate that 13-year-old girl in “blasphemy.”
Police have arrested prayer leader Khalid Jadoon on charges of fabricating evidence, which he had used to accuse Rimsha Masih of committing blasphemy by allegedly burning Quranic pages, Express Newsreported early on Sunday.
Express News correspondent Qamarul Munawar said that Hafiz Muhammad Zubair, who witnessed Jadoon adding pages of the Quran, recorded a statement with the Rawalpindi magistrate on Saturday.
According to Zubair’s account, he was sitting in Iteqaaf in the mosque when some people handed burnt pages to the prayer leader. After a little while, Jadoon added additional pages of the Quran to the pile.
Zubair, in his statement added that three other people present with him in the mosque asked Jadoon why he was adding documents to the pile of burnt paper, to which prayer leader said that such an act was necessary to strengthen their case.
Some people gave this fella some burned pages. They weren’t from the Quran. So he put in some pages from the Quran, to “strengthen” their non-existent “case.”
How very…pious.
So when can we expect charges of blasphemy/desecration against Jadoon?
Exactly what I was thinking. Where did he get the pages? What nice people, framing a Christian child to clear Christians from their homes!
Yeah, anyone want to bet that false charges of desecration against a “holy” man don’t have the same risk of a mob-driven death penalty verdict that false charges against a 13-year-old girl do?
This is exactly why blasphemy laws are so dangerous. They easily allow people to pursue their petty grudges or greedy desires with a veil of piety.
Makes me think of all the women accused and killed on accusations of being witches in the middle ages (and after).
The case was either weak or non-existent so this “Man of God” decided to fake some evidence to get a girl convicted of something she didn’t do but which he actually did.
Reminds of this incident that happened in India. Years ago, my father and his neighbors were faced with a predicament – a politically well connected fellow was blasting an illegal granite quarry too close to our houses for comfort. After several pleas to the lay authorities didn’t work, my father decided to appeal to the “higher authority” – he went to a used goods shop and got a a lance shaped rod. Overnight, he and a few of his friends dug a hole in the ground near the quarry and stuck the lance in.
The next morning he gathered the people around and announced a “miracle” – a Vel or a lance, the weapon of the Tamil god Murugan, has sprung from the ground, and so it should be declared as a holy site. A thatched hut was quickly built around the lance, and the “temple” was consecrated. The fellow promptly abandoned the quarry.
Sometimes, god delusion helps, too 😀
Sorry, I’m clueless over here…what did this defenseless little girl do in the first place to make her such a threat that she needs to be prosecuted as a criminal and gotten rid of?
Did she piss off someone in a position of responsibility? Does she have dirt on someone who wants to keep her quiet?
On the plus side – this shows that there are people in Pakistan (probably even muslims!) who actually value the truth when it comes to accusing someone of disrespecting a piece of paper.
That little girl sure is aging fast. She was 11 only a couple of weeks ago.
#11 Please report to the nearest mental institution asap.
Respect for Hafiz Muhammed Zubair, for he probably is quite aware his deed will not go unpunished.
It would be ironic if that idiot hatebeard sealed his own fate instead of that little girl. But I have little doubt that he will not have to (nor should he, in my view) because I don’t know he acted in good faith or something and it’s probably some complicated conspiracy anyway or something or other, and the girl will still have to either emigrate and live there under permanent police protection or she will be killed. No country will want to take her, because everybody hates immigrants, so her fate is sealed anyway.
BBC gives the imam a different name:
Same person, same occupation: prayer leader/ imam Masjid Khalid Jadoon Chishti.
I’m 50 years old, and I’m not often shocked these days.
This shocks me. How unspeakably cruel, to try to get an innocent, mentally handicapped teenager stoned or burned to death.
I wonder what his motive was? Did she do something to upset him (like not show enough deference) or does he believe that persecuting Christians will get him into paradise with the 72 virgins? Or is he just after power hear and now?
And I’d like to think this will shock people out of the mindset of “burn the blasphemer on accusation, without waiting for evidence”. But I’ve a horrible feeling that lots of people will find it too shocking to believe. “Muslims don’t do that!”
Except that this one did.
Yes, Hafiz Muhammad Zubair is very brave, and I hope he’ll be safe. I really hope the other witnesses will come forward, now that one has.
Muslim doctrine is that people who die before they could be aware of the truth of islam go to paradise.
Perhaps Khalid Jadoon was giving her a helping hand to heaven.
It’s chilling to think about how many other cases like this one don’t hit the western media, maybe because the accused isn’t so clearly a vulnerable innocent but is just like thee or me.
This is one of those days that going to live on some minor island off Scotland and eat seaweed, to get as far away as I can from my fellow humans, sounds like a good option.
Doesn’t this fetishising of the Q’uran qualify as idolatry? Wahhabis are eager to tear down every monument–including those to Mo–in their craze against ‘idols.’
If the Koran is eternal and outside of time and so forth, why this crazy worship of wood-pulp?
Gee, I wonder what sort of grudge a grown man could harbor against a 14 year-old girl?
So this poor girl has been in prison for at least a fortnight and the decision to grant her bail was apparently gleefully delayed by the prosecution lawyer over a technicality all – if the allegations are true – in the name of lying for….well, in this case for bigotry, since the goal seems to have been to get rid of Christians in the area.
I wonder if he ever thought once about that poor girl and what she’s suffering. As I understand it, the punishment she was facing (still faces, presumably, unless the charges are dropped) range from a fine to death.
Right now, she’s sitting in prison contemplating that.