Islamabad:
The Superior Court of the capital has ordered a government investigation into accusations that young people are caught in cases of online blasphemy, after appeals from hundreds of families.
There has been an increase in cases of mostly young men arrested for committing blasphemy in WhatsApp groups since 2022. The rights groups and the police have said that many are taken to trial by firms of private lawyers, who use volunteers to search the Internet for criminals.
“The Government will constitute a commission within a period of 30 days,” said Judge Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, adding that the commission must present its findings within four months.
A report published by the National Human Rights Commission administered by the Government in October last year said there were 767 people, mostly young men, in jail pending trial for the accusations of blasphemy.
“This is a great ray of hope and it is the first time that families have felt heard,” said lawyer Imaan Mazari, who represents the families of arrested men and women, of the court order.
“Young people have been falsely agreed in cases of such a sensitive nature that stigma will last forever even if they are acquitted,” he added.
A 2024 Punjab police report on sudden peak in cases, which leaked to the media, discovered that “a suspicious gang was catching young people in cases of blasphemy” and may be motivated by financial gain.
The Legal Commission on Pakistan Blasphymia (LCBP) is the most active group of lawyers that process young men in Pakistan. Sheraz Ahmad Farooqi, one of the group’s leaders, told AFP in October that “God has chosen them for this noble cause.”
In recent years, several young people have been convicted and delivered death sentences, although Blasphymian execution has never been carried out in Pakistan.
“We will completely support the TRUS commission and trust that our voices will finally be heard, our concerns will be heard and the truth will come out,” the relative of one of the defendants told AFP, who asked not to be appointed by the violent reaction.
With AFP entrance
