Imam who made the claim arrested.
By Sreekanth A Nair
A 15-year-old boy in Pakistan cut-off his hand in response to a false claim of him being blasphemous, by an imam. The imam was later arrested.
The boy, Anwar Ali, was attending an evening prayer on January 10 at the mosque in the village of Khanqah, southwest of Lahore, when the imam, Shabir Ahmad, asked those who had gathered to raise their hand, if they didn’t like Prophet Muhammad. Ali misheard the question and thought that the imam was asking for those who like Prophet Muhammad and he raised his hands.
He was the only person who raised hands in the gathering. Seeing Ali raise his hands, Ahmad pointed his finger at him and called him a “blasphemer who was liable to be killed.”
Hearing the words of the imam, the crowd suddenly started shouting at him whether he didn’t love his prophet. The boy was shocked and fled the place.
The boy went home, cut off his right hand with a scythe and showed it to the imam as a punishment to declare him free of his blasphemy.
The police acted quickly and arrested the imam. But due to the pressure from local authorities and religious leaders, the police released him later. But the police arrested him again because of mounting pressure from international media.
“There is no physical evidence against the cleric of involvement, but he has been charged for inciting and arousing the emotions of people to such a level that the boy did this act,” the district police chief, Faisal Rana, said.
But, the family came up to support the imam saying he didn’t do anything wrong and should not be punished.
“We are lucky that we have this son who loves Prophet Muhammad that much. We will be rewarded by God for this in the eternal world,” Muhammad Ghafoor, Anwar’s father, told The Times of India.
Anwar Ali said what he did was for the love of Prophet Muhammad.
Blasphemy laws are very strong in Pakistan with penalties ranging from fine to death.
“We have become a society so intoxicated by negative things in the name of religion that parents feel proud of sending their children to jihad and to die in the name of such activities,” IA Rehman, secretary-general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told the Times.
“The government needs to do more to educate people and to speak out against extremism,” he added.