In the neighboring Punjab province of Pakistan, a court has sentenced a 22-year-old student to death, while another has been given life imprisonment in a blasphemy case.
The culprits are accused of allegedly saying derogatory words about Prophet Muhammad and his wives, making photos and videos. The student who has been sentenced to death is 22 years old, while the one who has been sentenced to life imprisonment is 17 years old. That means he is a teenager.
According to the BBC report, in its decision the court said that the students had shared blasphemous material on the social media platform WhatsApp ‘with the intention of hurting the religious sentiments of Muslims’.
Both the students have denied the allegations against them. His lawyers have said that he has been wrongly implicated in the case.
The FIR in this case was registered in 2022. A case was registered against both the students by the Cyber Crime Unit of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Lahore.
The complainant had alleged that he had received videos and photographs containing blasphemous content from three different mobile phone numbers. The investigating agency, after examining the phone of the complainant, found that “obscene material” was sent from the phone of the accused.
The father of a 22-year-old student is preparing to file an appeal in the Lahore High Court against the death sentence given to his son by the lower court. Let us tell you that the punishment for blasphemy in Pakistan is death.
The anti-blasphemy law was first implemented during the British era in undivided India. It was later expanded under the military government of Pakistan in the 1980s.