According to human rights groups, blasphemy laws in Pakistan are often exploited, even against Muslims, to settle personal rivalries or to persecute minorities. Almost any person that speaks out against blasphemy laws or proceedings is in danger of being lynched or killed by a mob. [1]
Arrests and death sentences issued for blasphemy laws in Pakistan go back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. Despite the implementation of these laws, no one has yet been executed by the order of the courts or government. People have only been imprisoned to await a verdict or killed at the hands of felons who were convinced that the suspects were guilty. [2] [3]
Year | Case |
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1996 | On 14 October, Pakistani police arrested Ayub Masih, a Christian bricklayer, for violation of penal code § 295-C. Muhammad Akram, a Muslim neighbour of Masih, complained to the police that Masih had said Christianity was right, and Masih had suggested that Akram read Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses . [4] [5] The same day that Masih was arrested, Muslim villagers forced the entire Christian population of Masih's village (fourteen families) to leave the village. Masih's family had applied under a government program that gave housing plots to landless people. Local landlords resented Masih's application because the landlords had been able to oblige landless Christians to work in the fields in exchange for a place to live. Masih's application gave him a way out of his subservience to the landlords. [6] Upon Masih's arrest, the authorities gave Masih's plot to Akram. [4] Akram shot and injured Masih in the halls of the Session Court at Sahiwal on 6 November 1997. Four assailants also attacked Masih in jail. The authorities took no action against Akram or against the other assailants. [4] On 20 April 1998, Judge Abdul Khan sentenced Masih to death and levied a fine of 100,000 rupees. Two judges of the Lahore High Court heard Masih's appeal on 24 July 2001. Shortly thereafter, the judges affirmed the judgment of the trial court. [4] On 16 August 2002, the Supreme Court of Pakistan set aside the judgment of the lower courts. The Supreme Court noted Akram's acquisition of Masih's property and concluded the case had been fabricated for personal gain. The court also noted other breaches in the law of due process. [7] [8] |
1997 | On 6 and 7 February, a mob of approximately 30,000 Muslims burned and looted the villages of Shanti Nagar and Tibba near Khanewal in Punjab. [9] [10] The riot began after loudspeakers accused the local Christian population of ripping pages from the Quran and scribbling insults against Mohammed in the margins. [11] The attacks saw the destruction of at least 785 homes as well four churches and forced over 2,500 Christians to flee. [12] In 2013, villagers in Shanti Nagar erected the then largest cross in Pakistan in memory of the attack. [13] |
2000 | In October, Pakistani authorities charged Younus Shaikh, a physician, with blasphemy on account of remarks that students claimed he made during a lecture. The students alleged that, inter alia, Shaikh had said Muhammad's parents were non-Muslims because they died before Islam existed. A judge ordered that Shaikh pay a fine of 100,000 rupees, and that he be hanged. [14] On 20 November 2003, a court retried the matter and acquitted Shaikh, who fled Pakistan for Switzerland soon thereafter. [15] |
2005 | On 11 August, Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the Anti-Terrorist Court found a different Younus Shaikh guilty of “defiling a copy of the Quran, outraging religious feelings and propagating religious hatred among society.” [16] Shaikh was arrested after openly distributing copies of his book, Shaitan Maulvi (Satanic Cleric), in which he wrote that stoning to death was not mentioned in the Quran as a punishment for adultery. The book also said that four historical imams were Jews. [17] The judge imposed upon Shaikh a fine of 100,000 rupees, and sentenced him to spend his life in jail. [18] |
2005 | On 23 December, five men from the Mehdi Foundation International were arrested in Lahore for putting up posters of their leader, Riaz Gohar Shahi, which claimed that he was the Mahdi. They were all later sentenced to five years each by the Anti-Terrorism Court for violation of penal code § 295-A. [19] |
2006 | On 3 June, following protests by the country's Christian minority, Pakistan banned the The Da Vinci Code (film) for theorizing about the descendants of Jesus Christ. Although the book had been available for some time, culture minister Ghulam Jamal said that "Islam teaches us to respect all the prophets of God Almighty and degradation of any prophet is tantamount to defamation of the rest." [20] [21] |
2009 | On 22 January, Hector Aleem, a Christian peace activist, was arrested in Islamabad after having allegedly sent a member of Sunni Tehreek a blasphemous text message. [22] He was later cleared of the blasphemy charges, but remained jailed on charges of fraud and smuggling. [23] |
2009 | In June, Asia Bibi, a Catholic woman from Punjab, was arrested and prosecuted under penal code 295C after supposedly making derogatory remarks about the Islamic prophet Muhammad. [24] Bibi was convicted and sentenced to death in November 2010, as well as fined the equivalent of $1,100. [25] On 8 October 2018, following several unsuccessful appeals, Bibi's death sentence was overturned by Pakistan's Supreme Court. [26] However, she was prevented from leaving the country by order of the Government of Pakistan until 8 May 2019 when she was reunited with her family in Canada. [27] |
2009 | In July, eight Pakistani Christians were killed in the Punjabi town of Gojra after members of the then-banned Sipah-e-Sahaba attacked and burned their homes. Christians in the neighboring village of Korrian had allegedly torn up pages of the Quran during a wedding, but the Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti said this was untrue and that the police had ignored his instructions to protect Gojra's Christian community. [28] [29] [30] |
2010 | In July, a trader in Faisalabad complained that one of his employees had been handed a pamphlet which contained disrespectful remarks about Muhammad. According to the police, the pamphlet appeared to have the signatures and addresses of Pastor Rashid Emmanuel and his brother Sajid, who were Christians. The brothers were shot and killed while being escorted by the police from a district court. Both had denied the charge of blasphemy. [31] Following their murder, rumors spread that angry Christians were burning Muslim homes, prompting hundreds of Muslim men to gather in Christian neighborhoods. They then clashed with nearby Christians before the police dispersed the crowd. [32] An anti-terrorism court later sentenced Maqsood Ahmed, a Muslim man, to death for the double-murder of Rashid and Sajid. [33] |
2011 | On 4 January, Salman Taseer, govern of Punjab, was shot dead in Islamabad by his bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri for his opposition to Pakistan's blasphemy laws and his support for Asia Bibi. [34] Qadri was sentenced to death on 1 October by an anti-terrorism court and, after several failed appeals, was executed on 29 February 2016. [35] |
2011 | On 2 March, Shahbaz Bhatti, who was a Catholic member of the National Assembly, was killed by gunmen in Islamabad as he was travelling to work, a few weeks after he had vowed to defy death threats over his efforts to reform Pakistan's blasphemy laws. [36] |
2012 | In August, a Christian girl named Rimsha Masih was arrested for blasphemy in Islamabad for allegedly burning pages of a Quran or a book containing verses from the Quran. [37] [38] Masih, who was described as being between the ages of 11 and 16, could not read or write. [39] The charges against her were dropped following widespread international concern. Masih and her family left Pakistan shortly thereafter to settle in Canada. [40] |
2013 | On 18 June, Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar, a Christian couple from Gojra, were arrested for allegedly sending a mosque cleric a text message that insulted Muhammad. [41] The couple, who are illiterate, claimed that the offending text had been sent from a lost mobile phone and that the case was motivated by a personal grudge. [42] On 4 April 2014, they were both convicted and sentenced to death. [43] [44] On 3 June 2021, the Lahore High Court overturned the convictions due to lack of evidence and the couple were shortly thereafter granted asylum in an unspecified European country. [45] [46] |
2014 | In January, Muhammad Asghar, a 70-year-old British man from Edinburgh, was convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death by a court in Rawalpindi. Asghar had initially been arrested in 2010 after sending letters in which he declared himself a prophet, and had lived in Pakistan for several years prior to his arrest and trial. [47] Following a stroke in 2010, doctors in Edinburgh diagnosed Asghar with paranoid schizophrenia. He spent a month in a psychiatric hospital before leaving for Pakistan. [48] In September 2014, Asghar was shot in the back by a prison guard for reasons unknown. [49] |
2014 | On 4 November, a Christian couple, Shahzad Masih and his pregnant wife Shama Masih, were beaten and burned to death in a brick kiln by a mob in Kot Radha Kishan after being accused of burning the Quran. Shama Masih had burned several possessions of a recently deceased relative outside her home a few days before, including various talismans and charms. Allegations then spread to neighboring villages that Masih had destroyed a Quran, prompting local clerics to issue a fatwa against the couple. On the day of the attack, a crowd of about 500 people stormed the kiln where they worked, took them from their room, and killed them. [50] [51] On 23 November 2016, an antiterrorism court sentenced five people to death in connection with the murders; however, two of them were later acquitted in 2019. [52] [53] |
2014 | On 5 November, Haider Tufail Naqvi, a Shia Muslim, was hacked to death in his Gujrat prison cell by a police officer for allegedly making derogatory remarks about the companions of Muhammad. Naqvi, who was reportedly mentally unstable, had been detained the day before after being assaulted by a group of individuals for making suspected blasphemous remarks. He supposedly kept making these remarks until assistant sub-inspector Faraz Naveed went into Naqvi's cell early in the morning and killed him with an axe. [54] [55] [56] Naveed was arrested and given a double death sentence on 27 February 2016, pending an appeal in the Lahore High Court. [57] |
2014 | On 18 September, Shakil Auj, Dean of Islamic Studies at Karachi University, was assassinated by unknown gunmen while driving in Karachi following accusations of blasphemy. [58] |
2016 | In first of its kind case, a 30-year-old Shiite Taimoor Raza has been sentenced to death by Anti-Terror Court, for posting blasphemous content on Facebook. [59] [60] He was booked in 2016 after he engaged in sectarian debate with a counter-terrorism official on Facebook. [61] |
2016 | In November, a Facebook campaign was launched by the followers of Khadim Hussain Rizvi, against Malik Shahrukh, a PhD researcher who was previously associated with an Islamabad-based diplomatic news publication. Malik was accused of calling the Quran "an ordinary book, produced by Mohammad for economic and political purposes." A video of the local Imam of Sargodha, in which he incited people during the Friday sermon to kill Malik, went viral. Several applications were made to the authorities against Malik, demanding that he be sentenced to death. Authorities could not arrest Malik because he was not in Pakistan at the time. Sources claim that Malik is being framed for criticizing Tahreek-e-Labbaik and its chief. [62] |
2017 | In March, Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif supported a crackdown on blasphemous material posted on social media and described blasphemy as an "unpardonable offence". [63] [64] Shortly after, Pakistani blogger Ayaz Nizami, founder of realisticapproach.org, [65] an Urdu website about atheism, and Vice President of Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan, [66] was detained under the charges of blasphemy and could face the death penalty. [67] [68] |
2017 | In April, Mashal Khan, a Pakistani student at the Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, was killed by an angry mob following allegations that he posted blasphemous content online. [69] [70] |
2017 | In July, Faisal Mahmood was charged with blasphemy law U/S 295C by the court of magistrate special judicial Gujarat and could be sentenced to death. [71] |
2017 | In December, a 58-year-old man accused of blasphemy was freed after spending over nine years in jail. Bahawalnagar District court and Lahore High Court sentenced the man to life imprisonment which was overruled by Supreme Court of Pakistan as the evidence used was not in accordance with the Evidence Act. [72] |
2019 | Junaid Hafeez, formerly a lecturer at Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan, was sentenced to death for blasphemy after being arrested in 2013 and accused of insulting Muhammad on Facebook. Hafeez's first attorney, Rashid Rehman, was murdered in his office in 2014 after agreeing to represent Hafeez. The verdict prompted an outcry from human rights groups; Amnesty International called it a "'vile and gross miscarriage of justice." [73] [74] |
2020 | On 10 June, Sajid Soomro, an assistant professor at Shah Abdul Latif University, was arrested after allegedly writing criticisms of various religious beliefs as well as of Pakistan. [3] A professor from the University of Sindh, Arfana Mallah, was later pressured by members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a Sunni political party, for supporting Soomro and criticizing the blasphemy law. [10] [12] The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned the attacks against both Soomro and Mallah as "attempts to scuttle academic freedom by targeting intellectuals on flimsy grounds." [14] |
2020 | In July, Qamar Riaz, a local leader in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, attempted to file a blasphemy case against former Minister for Foreign Affairs Khawaja Muhammad Asif for allegedly saying "Islam and all religions are equal" in a speech to Pakistan's National Assembly. [75] [76] [77] |
2020 | On 29 July, Tahir Naseem, an American citizen from Illinois, was shot dead in a courtroom in Peshawar after allegedly claiming to be the messiah and a prophet. [16] He was lured from the United States in 2018 by Facebook users who challenged him to a religious debate, but Naseem was jailed upon arriving in Pakistan. [18] The United States Department of State quickly condemned the attack, urging Pakistan to reform its blasphemy laws and court system. [20] |
2020 | In September, Asif Pervaiz, a Christian man, was sentenced to death by a Lahore court for sending a "blasphemous" message to his former work supervisor in 2013. Pervaiz said that his supervisor had tried to convert him to Islam, which he refused to do; however, the court rejected his testimony. [78] |
2021 | In September, a court in Lahore sentenced Salma Tanveer, a school principal, to death for allegedly distributing photocopies of her writings denying the finality of prophethood and claimed herself as a prophet. She had initially been arrested on 3 September 2013. [79] [80] [81] |
2021 | On 25 November, four Muslim men were charged with blasphemy for arguing with a imam while requesting to allow a funeral announcement from the village mosque for a Christian neighbour. [82] |
2021 | On 28 November, A police station in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was burned down by a mob after the police there refused to hand over a mentally-unstable blasphemy suspect. [83] [84] |
2021 | On 3 December, Priyantha Kumara, a Buddhist Sri Lankan factory manager in Sialkot, was tortured and burnt to death on the street by a mob of Muslims after he was accused of desecrating posters bearing Muhammad's name. [85] [86] |
2022 | On 8 February, a Hindu teacher, Nautan Lal, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court in Sindh for blasphemy. Lal was arrested in September 2019 following the posting of a video on social media in which a student claimed that Lal had committed blasphemy against Muhammed. [87] [88] |
2022 | On 12 February, a mentally unstable man was beaten to death by a mob of over 300 in Punjab after a mosque custodian accused him of desecrating the Quran. The police attempted to take custody of the man, but were pelted by stones and forced to retreat. [89] [90] |
2023 | On 4 February, Wikipedia was blocked in Pakistan after failing to remove undisclosed “blasphemous content.” [91] The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) gave the Wikimedia Foundation a 48-hour deadline to remove the offending material, which was reportedly ignored. [92] The ban was lifted on 7 February by order of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif following widespread criticism. [93] Sharif also authorized the creation of a committee to review and offer alternative technical solutions for dealing with objectionable online content. [94] |
2023 | On 11 February, Muhammad Waris, a Muslim man, was lynched in the city of Nankana Sahib by an angry mob after having been arrested by police on the charge of blasphemy. In footage of the incident posted to social media, hundreds of people surrounded the police station where Waris was being held. He was then dragged through the streets, stripped of his clothes, and beaten to death with metal rods and sticks. [95] [96] |
2023 | On 17 April, [lower-alpha 1] a Chinese transport supervisor employed at the Dasu Dam in northern Pakistan was accused of disrespecting Islam by his Pakistani transport drivers after allegedly admonishing the them for delaying in reporting to work after their prayer time during the month of Ramadan. About 400 local residents then gathered to protest after the labourers accused the engineer of uttering disrespectful comments. For his safety, the accused Chinese man was transported to a police station in Komila and flown thereafter to Abbottabad. The police arrested the Chinese supervisor after filing a FIR against him in accordance with Section 295-C of the Pakistani Penal Code. The FIR also referenced Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. [98] [99] [100] [101] The Chinese man was subsequently released on bail, with the regional police chief stating that the case may only be a misunderstanding. Such bail is exceptional in Pakistan, where judges usually postpone blasphemy cases for many years, worrying about reprisals. [102] [103] |
2023 | On 6 May, Maulana Nigar Alam, a local Muslim religious leader, was killed by an angry mob at a political rally in the village of Sawaldher in Mardan district after being accused of blasphemy. Tehreek-e-Insaf organized the demonstration as a show of support for the country's judiciary, and Alam was invited to speak. However, while offering a prayer at the end of the event, Alam allegedly made an blasphemous remark, leading rallygoers to attack him. The police locked him inside a nearby shop for protection, but the mob broke down the door, dragged Alam out, and beat him to death with batons. [104] [105] [106] A local jirga later determined that the lynching was illegal and un-Islamic, and that the perpetrators must pay 4.5 million rupees in blood money to Alam's family. [107] |
2023 | On 5 August, Abdul Rauf Baloch, an English teacher, was killed by unidentified gunmen in the city of Turbat in southern Balochistan following accusations of blasphemy from some of his students. Rauf, who denied the allegations, was on his way to explain his position to a jirga of over 100 ulema when he was murdered. [108] [109] On 8 August, protestors at a rally organized by the Baloch Yakjehti Committee [lower-alpha 2] condemned Rauf's murder and accused the jirga of being involved in some way. [110] On the same night as the demonstration, Sameer Baloch, Rauf's brother, and his wife, Hani Baloch, were abducted by unidentified armed men from their home in the city of Iranshahr in Iran. [111] The bodies of the couple were later found with signs that they had been tortured. [112] The connection, if any, between their deaths and that of Rauf are unknown. [113] |
2023 | On 16 August, an armed mob of Muslims set fire to at least four churches and several homes in Jaranwala in eastern Punjab following accusations that two Christian men had desecrated the Quran. [114] [115] The crowd, which numbered in the thousands, were reportedly led by clerics and included members of the far-right Islamic extremist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan. [116] Akmal Bhatti, Chairman of the Minorities Alliance Pakistan, accused the government and local administration of failing to protect Christian residents. [117] In response to the attack, a spokesperson for Amnesty International stated that “the authorities in Pakistan must immediately address the climate of impunity around violence against religious minorities” and that “the vicious mob attacks are just the latest manifestation of the threat of vigilante violence which anyone can face in Pakistan after a blasphemy accusation.” [118] The police, who were accused of inaction during the attacks by some eyewitnesses, later arrested over 120 people for their involvement in the unrest. [119] |
2024 | On March 8, a local court in the city of Gujranwala sentenced a 22-year-old student to death and a 17-year-old to life imprisonment [lower-alpha 3] for having shared blasphemous material through WhatsApp. [121] [122] |
Quran desecration is the treatment of the Quran in a way that might be considered insulting.
The situation of Human Rights in Pakistan is complex as a result of the country's diversity, large population, its status as a developing country and a sovereign Islamic democracy with a mixture of both Islamic and secular law.
The Insurgency in Balochistan is an insurgency or revolt by Baloch separatist insurgents and various Islamist militant groups against the governments of Pakistan and Iran in the Balochistan region, which covers the Pakistani province of Balochistan, Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan, and Balochistan of southern Afghanistan. Rich in natural resources, this is the largest, least populated and least developed province in Pakistan and Iran, and armed groups demand greater control of the province's natural resources and political autonomy. Baloch separatists have attacked civilians from other ethnicities throughout the province. In the 2010s, attacks against the Shia community by sectarian groups—though not always directly related to the political struggle—have risen, contributing to tensions in Balochistan. In Pakistan, the ethnic separatist insurgency is low-scale but ongoing mainly in southern Balochistan, as well as sectarian and religiously motivated militancy concentrated mainly in northern and central Balochistan.
The Pakistani Constitution limits Censorship in Pakistan, but allows "reasonable restrictions in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of Pakistan or public order or morality". Press freedom in Pakistan is limited by official censorship that restricts critical reporting and by the high level of violence against journalists. The armed forces, the judiciary, and religion are topics that frequently attract the government's attention.
The Pakistan Penal Code outlaws blasphemy against any recognized religion, with punishments ranging from a fine to the death penalty. According to various human rights organizations, Pakistan's blasphemy laws have been used to persecute religious minorities and settle personal rivalries, frequently against other Muslims, rather than to safeguard religious sensibilities.
The Balochistan Liberation Army, is a Baloch ethnonationalist militant separatist organization based in Afghanistan. BLA's first recorded activity was during the summer of 2000, after it claimed credit for a series of bombing attacks on Pakistani authorities. BLA is listed as a terrorist organization by Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
In Islam, blasphemy is impious utterance or action concerning God, but is broader than in normal English usage, including not only the mocking or vilifying of attributes of Islam but denying any of the fundamental beliefs of the religion. Examples include denying that the Quran was divinely revealed, the Prophethood of one of the Islamic prophets, insulting an angel, or maintaining God had a son.
Sectarian violence in Pakistan refers to violence directed against people and places in Pakistan motivated by antagonism toward the target's religious sect. As many as 4,000 Shia are estimated to have been killed in sectarian attacks in Pakistan between 1987 and 2007, and thousands more Shia have been killed by Salafi extremists from 2008 to 2014, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Sunni Sufis and Barelvis have also suffered from some sectarian violence, with attacks on religious shrines killing hundreds of worshippers, and some Deobandi leaders assassinated. Pakistan minority religious groups, including Hindus, Ahmadis, and Christians, have "faced unprecedented insecurity and persecution" in at least two recent years, according to Human Rights Watch. One significant aspect of the attacks in Pakistan is that militants often target their victims places of worship during prayers or religious services in order to maximize fatalities and to "emphasize the religious dimensions of their attack".
The Federal Republic of Nigeria operates two court systems. Both systems can punish blasphemy. The Constitution provides a customary (irreligious) system and a system that incorporates Sharia. The customary system prohibits blasphemy by section 204 of Nigeria's Criminal Code.
In 2010, a Pakistani Christian woman, Aasiya Noreen, commonly known as Asia Bibi or Aasia Bibi, was convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court and was sentenced to death by hanging. In October 2018, the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted her based on insufficient evidence, though she was not allowed to leave Pakistan until the verdict was reviewed. She was held under armed guard and was not able to leave the country until 7 May 2019; she arrived in Canada the next day.
Persecution of Christians in Pakistan has been recorded since the country's independence in 1947. The persecution has taken many forms, including violence, discrimination, and blasphemy laws.
Human rights abuses in the province ofBalochistan refers to the human rights violations that are occurring in the ongoing insurgency in Balochistan. The situation has drawn concern from the international community, The human rights situation in Balochistan is credited to the long-running conflict between Baloch nationalists and Pakistani security forces.
Religious discrimination in Pakistan is a serious issue for the human rights situation in modern-day Pakistan. Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Shias, and Ahmadis among other religious minorities often face discrimination and at times are even subjected to violence. In some cases Christian churches and the worshippers themselves have been attacked. Khawaja Nazimuddin, the 2nd Prime Minister of Pakistan, stated: "I do not agree that religion is a private affair of the individual nor do I agree that in an Islamic state every citizen has identical rights, no matter what his caste, creed or faith be".
Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, better known as Mumtaz Qadri, was a terrorist who murdered Salmaan Taseer, Governor of Punjab. Qadri was a commando of the Elite Police and, at the time of the assassination, a member of the squad of personal bodyguards assigned to protect Taseer. A follower of the Barelvi version of Sunni Islam, he assassinated Taseer on 4 January 2011. He claimed to have killed the Governor because Taseer spoke in defense of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death. Qadri was convicted by the Islamabad High Court, sentenced to death and hanged in February 2016.
Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar are a Pakistani Christian couple who in 2014 were convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court, receiving a sentence of death by hanging. In 2021, the convictions were overturned.
Mashal Khan was a student at the Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Pakistan who was killed by an angry mob in the premises of the university on 13 April 2017, over allegations of posting blasphemous content online. Following investigations, the Inspector General Police later stated "We did not find any concrete evidence under which [a blasphemy] investigation or legal action can be launched against Mashal, Abdullah or Zubair". Mashal's friend Abdullah stated to the police in writing that both Mashal and Abdullah were devout Muslims, but were actively denouncing mismanagement by the university and had previously led protests against it. Following the death of Khan, at least 61 suspects were identified. 57 of the 61 suspected were arrested and sentenced on 7 February 2018. One culprit was awarded the death penalty, five were awarded life-time imprisonment and 25 other culprits were awarded four years jail sentence. 26 suspects were acquitted in the case because of lack of evidence. Four suspects were on the run, who later surrendered to the police in June 2018. Later on 21 March 2019, two more culprits in Mashal Khan case were awarded life imprisonment by the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC). Mashal Khan's father, speaking to media on 21 March 2019, claimed that he was satisfied with Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) verdict.
Khadim Hussain Rizvi was a Pakistani Islamic author and the founder of Tehreek-e-Labbaik, a political-religious organization founded in 2015, known to protest against any change to Pakistan's blasphemy law.
Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana was a 49-year-old Sri Lankan man who was lynched by a mob on 3 December 2021 in Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan over allegations of blasphemy. Supporters of the Sunni party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) were believed to be part of the killing of Kumara, while the TLP officially distanced itself from the incident. The Anti-Terrorism Court in Lahore later gave the death sentence to six who were involved in the lynching while nine others received life sentences. An additional 72 people were also sentenced to two years in prison.
The events listed below are both anticipated and scheduled for the year 2023 in Pakistan.
In the Jaranwala church arsons, 26 Christian churches in Jaranwala, Punjab, Pakistan were burnt down by acts of arson, and homes belonging to Christian families were looted and destroyed by Muslim rioters on August 16, 2023; Bible desecration was committed as well. The attacks were carried out by mobs of Muslims who were enraged by allegations that a Christian man had desecrated the Quran. No deaths were reported. More than a hundred rioters, that included members of the far-right group Tehreek-e-Labbaik, have since been arrested.