FAISALABAD: The Anti-Terrorism Court Faisalabad acquitted two brothers, arrested on charges of desecrating the Holy Quran, after it transpired they had been implicated in the case fraudulently.
The Faisalabad ATC judge set free the two men from the blasphemy case, registered on Aug 16, 2023, after dozens of Christian homes and around 20 churches were vandalised and ransacked by mobs in Jaranwala.
While police rounded up more than 125 suspected rioters while the two men had also been held on the accusation that they defaced pages of the holy Quran.
However, a police investigation revealed that two other individuals — who had a personal enmity with the two brothers — had plotted to implicate them in a blasphemy case.
Police investigation found the rivals’ plot to implicate both the brothers over personal enmity
Hundreds of Christians fled Jaranwala’s Christian quarter last summer when rioters surged in, setting churches ablaze and raiding homes.
At its peak, the mob is said to have numbered around 5,000 and was spurred by mosque loudspeakers announcing that a copy of the Holy Quran had been desecrated. However, law enforcers had cast doubts on the allegations early on.
The Supreme Court is also hearing a case related to the Jaranwala incident, and at the last hearing, it regretted that state functionaries become intimidated by troublemakers, who take law into their own hands only to advance their agenda by provoking people to launch attacks against properties of members of religious minorities.
The apex court had also rejected the police report, noting that the manner in which the investigation had been conducted and the apparent hesitation shown by law-enforcement agencies in identifying the culprits would only bring disrepute to the force.
