Lahore court acquits man in blasphemy case over lack of reliable evidence

LAHORE: A sessions court has acquitted a man charged with desecrating the Holy Quran after finding that the prosecution failed to establish a direct link between him and the alleged offence.

According to the case record, police registered FIR No. 701 on April 27, 2024 under Sections 295-A and 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code. The complainant had alleged that while standing near Shadman Chowk, he saw a man near an auto-rickshaw who had taken off his shoes and placed pages containing sacred verses beneath his feet, while additional pages were scattered on the road. Police later reached the spot and nominated the accused in the case.

The trial began on Jan 16, 2025. The accused pleaded not guilty, denied the allegation and maintained that he had not been present at the scene.

The additional district and sessions judge, in a 10-page judgment issued on Monday, held that the prosecution case had been seriously weakened by unreliable testimony, missing evidence and unverified digital material. The court ordered the accused’s immediate release after extending to him the benefit of the doubt.

Witnesses failed to identify accused

The judge observed that the prosecution’s main witnesses did not legally connect the accused to the alleged incident. In court, the complainant described the occurrence while testifying on oath, but did not identify the accused as the person he had allegedly seen at the scene. The judgment also noted that during cross-examination, it emerged that the complainant had not drafted the application himself.

Another private witness told the court that he had seen a crowd detaining a person, but he too did not identify the accused in open court as that individual. The court further noted that the prosecution gave up a secondary eyewitness, a security guard said to have helped apprehend the alleged culprit at the scene. According to the judge, withholding that witness deprived the case of natural corroboration.

Digital and physical evidence found insufficient

The prosecution had also relied on a CD containing CCTV footage obtained from the Punjab Safe Cities Authority. However, the court ruled that the digital evidence was not legally admissible. The judge said the prosecution neither played the footage in court nor produced a forensic expert or Punjab Safe Cities Authority official to verify its authenticity. The video was also not sent to a laboratory to determine whether it had been tampered with.

Citing Supreme Court precedents, the judge held that the recovery of a CD by itself did not prove what it contained. The judgment further said police had claimed that the rickshaw found at the scene belonged to the accused, but the investigating officer admitted he had not produced or verified any official registration or ownership documents to connect the vehicle to him.

The court also examined a report from the Punjab Forensic Science Agency, which only established that the torn pages originated from the same source. It did not provide any forensic basis to show that the accused had handled those papers.

Court cites standard of proof

The judge observed that although the court remained fully conscious of the sanctity attached to the Holy Quran, the seriousness of the allegation could not replace the legal requirement of proof. Referring to Supreme Court rulings, including the Asia Bibi case, the court said that even a single circumstance creating reasonable doubt entitled an accused to acquittal as a matter of right rather than concession.

In the present case, the doubts are not imaginary, artificial or far-fetched. They arise from the prosecution evidence itself,

the judge ruled while acquitting the accused of all charges. The court also directed that the sacred pages recovered in the case property be handled and disposed of with due legal reverence.