Hafiz Abdul Malik of the Islamic group Jamaat ud Dawa said a few weeks ago about this case: “The police better arrest the blasphemer and hand him over to us on Saturday [Oct. 19]. We will not be responsible for any law-and-order situation in the city if the police fails to keep its assurance. How dare someone use derogatory language against our beloved prophet “¦ Don’t they know that the Koran orders us to slit the throat of whoever is disrespectful to Allah’s beloved prophet?”
“Don’t they know that the Koran orders us to slit the throat of whoever is disrespectful to Allah’s beloved prophet?” — that’s the kind of thing that quoting can get you charges of “Islamophobia.”
An update on this story. “Young Christian charged with blasphemy living on a knife-edge,” by Asher John for Pakistan Today, November 8 (thanks to Lookmann):
A young Christian pastor, in hiding after being accused of blaspheming against Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), has surrendered to police due to serious threats to his life reportedly from extremists belonging to a banned religious organisation, his lawyer told Pakistan Today.
Aneeqa Maria advocate said that Pastor Adnan Masih agreed to surrender to police on Wednesday, the end of his pre-arrest bail period, because of serious threats to his life. Lahore Additional Sessions Judge Khizar Hayat Khan acknowledged the risk to Masih’s life and ordered police to ensure his security while he is in custody, she said.
“We thought it wise to surrender Masih to the police by bringing to the judge’s notice that he would have most likely been killed by extremist elements. These elements had been demanding from the police that Masih be handed over to them,” Maria said. The militant wing of the banned outfit has been tagged as a global terror organisation by the US State Department for carrying out brazen terror attacks in South East Asia.
ACCUSED DEEPLY FRIGHTENED:
She said that Masih, 26, was deeply frightened when he agreed to surrender.
“Masih knew we could do nothing else except seek refuge in courts,” she said. “I”m determined to prove his innocence, because I believe that he has been wrongly accused.”
She said that a large number of protesters affiliated with the banned outfit were present outside the courtroom of Model Town Judicial Magistrate Muzamil Ahmed on Thursday where Masih was scheduled to be produced by the police.
“We reached the district courts at 7:30am, but a large number of protesters, some of them armed, were present outside Magistrate Ahmed’s courtroom,” she said. “We avoided confronting them and went to the office of the Sadar Division SP Investigation, Jahanzeb Khan where we were told that Masih would be produced in court on Friday because the police were still investigating the matter. However, the police did not present Masih in court on Friday,” she added.
“When we filed Masih’s pre-arrest bail on Oct. 26, the extremist elements started hounding us and issued us threats through various sources,” Maria said. “A large number of protesters were gathered at the sessions court on Nov. 6 as expected. Bringing Masih’s willingness to surrender to the court’s notice was the best option at that time. Now if anything happens to him, the police would be responsible,” she added….