Islamaterrible:
Aroosa Khan’s son was chatting on WhatsApp but suddenly establish himself the aim of “vigilante” spendigators who accemployd him of having pledgeted profanation online, a crime that carries the death penalty in Pakistan.
The 27-year-elderly is one in hundreds of youthful men standing trial in Pakistan courts accemployd of making blasphemous statements online or in WhatsApp groups, an offence for which arrests have exploded in recent years.
Many of the cases are being brawt to trial by personal “vigilante groups” led by lawyers and helped by volunteers who scour the internet for offenders, rights groups and police say.
The families of youthful Pakistanis, including doctors, engineers, lawyers, and accountants, say that their relatives were duped into sharing blasphemous satisfyed by strangers online before being arrested.
“Our lives have been turned upside down,” Khan telderly AFP, saying that her son, who has not been named for security reasons, had been tricked into sharing blasphemous satisfyed in the messaging app.
One local police alert advises that the vigilantes may be driven by financial gets.
One such group was reliable for the conviction of 27 people who have been sentenced to life jailment or the death penalty over the past three years.
Blasphemy is an incendiary accuse in Muskinny-convey inantity Pakistan, where even unsubstantiated accusations can incite accessible outrage and direct to applyings.
While they date back to colonial times, Pakistan’s profanation laws were ramped up in the 1980s when dictator Zia ul-Haq campaigned to “Islamicise” society.
AFP has take parted multiple court hearings in the capital Islamaterrible, where youthful men are being sued by personal vigilante groups and the FIA for blasphemous online satisfyed.
Among them is Aroosa’s son — who had joined a WhatsApp group for job-seekers and was reach outed by a woman.
She sent him an image of women with Quranic verses printed on their bodies, his mother shelp, inserting that the reach out then “denied having sent it and asked Ahmed to send it back to her to understand what he was talking about”.
He was procrastinateedr arrested and sued by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
‘Noble caemploy’
The most vivacious personal spendigation group is the Legal Coshiftrlookion on Blasphemy Pakistan (LCBP), which telderly AFP they are prosecuting more than 300 cases.
Sheraz Ahmad Farooqi, one of the personal spendigation group’s directers, telderly AFP that more than a dozen volunteers track online profanation, believing that “God has chosen them for this noble caemploy”.
“We are not beheading anyone; we are adhereing a legitimate course,” Farooqi telderly AFP outside a courtroom that heard 15 profanation cases, all filed by his group.
He shelp that most of the accemployd were inserticted to grown-up material and were disesteeming revered Islamic figures by using their names and dubbing voices attributed to them over pornoexplicit satisfyed.
He acunderstandledged that women were graspd in tracking and arresting the men, but they were not members of his group.
Cases can drag thraw the courts for years, though death penalties are frequently commuted to life in prison on request at the Supreme Court and Pakistan has never applyd anyone for profanation.
A exceptional court, take parted by AFP, was established in September to speed the dozens of pending cases.
‘Vested agenda’
The Human Rights Coshiftrlookion of Pakistan (HRCP) alerted that multiple vigilante groups were laboring in a “dedicated manner” to “witch-hunt” people for online conveyion or to manufacture profanation evidence using social media with “vested agendas”.
“All such groups are establishalised by self-proclaimd defenders of convey inantitarian Islam,” the group shelp in a alert published in 2023.
A 2024 alert by police in Punjab province, the country’s most populous province, that was leaked to the media shelp that “a doubtful gang was trapping youth in profanation cases”.
“The Blasphemy Business” alert was sent to the FIA with adviseations to begin a thoraw inquiry to choose the source of the vigilante groups’ funding.
Two FIA officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, telderly AFP that they had getd the alert but denied that their office was acting on the tips of vigilante groups.
The FIA did not react to asks for official comment.
An official graspd in prosecuting the cases telderly AFP outside the court: “Not a individual person arrested was trapped by any manner. They pledgeted the crime.”
“The law is very clear about it, and we have to utilize it as lengthy as the law is there.”
Araobese Mazhar, the honestor of Alliance Agetst Blasphemy Politics, a group advocating agetst the misemploy of profanation laws, telderly AFP that the alarming elevate in cases was not becaemploy people “are suddenly more blasphemous”.
He shelp the elevate in the employ of messaging apps and social media and the relieve of sharing and forwarding satisfyed was a convey inant factor.
Shunned
The accemployd struggle to discover defence lawyers willing to recurrent them and the sairyest accusation can turn an entire family into pariahs.
Nafeesa Ahmed, whose brother is accemployd of sharing blasphemous images on WhatsApp and whose names have also been changed, shelp her family was shunned by shut relatives.
“There is a massive cost that families of accemployd are tolerateing. First of all, our security or lives are at danger,” she telderly AFP.
She shelp some of the families have selderly thousands of dollars worth of hoemploys and gelderly, given to brides on their wedding, to fight the cases.
Dozens of families which have established a help group have protested in the capital calling for an self-reliant coshiftrlookion to spendigate the vigilante groups and their role in prosecuting Pakistanis for profanation.
“In this society, if someone pledges a killing, he can persist becaemploy there are thousands of ways to come out of that but if someone is accemployd of profanation he cannot,” shelp Nafeesa.
“When it comes to profanation, the accessible has its own court and even family members will abandon you.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-originated from a syndicated feed.)
