Brothers accused of blasphemy released

LAHORE: Two brothers accused of blasphemous acts that sparked a mob to ransack homes and churches in a Christian enclave last year have been freed from jail, their lawyer said on Friday.

More than 80 Christian homes and 19 churches were vandalised by crowds in the eastern city of Jaranwala last August, ater accusations spread that a Holy Quran had been desecrated.

While police rounded up more than 125 suspected rioters, they also detained two Christian brothers on suspicion of having defaced a Quran — a violation of Pakistan’s harsh blasphemy laws which can carry the death penalty.

But the brothers’ lawyer Tahir Bashir told reporters they had been freed ater an antiterror court declined to bring their case to trial on Thursday.

“Without a trial, no suspect can be detained indefinitely in jail,” Bashir said, declining to publicly name his clients out of fear for their safety.

“They are free, they are with their family. They were very happy to be released,” he added.

Hundreds of Christians fled Jaranwala’s Christian quarter last summer when rioters surged in, seting churches ablaze and raiding homes.

At its peak the crowd numbered around 5,000 and was spurred by mosque loudspeakers announcing a Holy Quran had been torn, scrawled with offensive words and stuck to the walls of a local mosque.

Politicians have been assassinated, lawyers murdered and students lynched over such accusations.

Last week, police were forced to intervene in the eastern city of Lahore when a woman wearing a shirt adorned with Arabic calligraphy was surrounded by a mob accusing her of blasphemy.

The crowd of men said the clothing depicted the Quran but it was in fact emblazoned with the Arabic word for “beautiful.”

The woman issued an apology for causing offence, but none of the men were arrested.

Pakistan’s top Supreme Court judge has also been targeted by veiled death threats recently ater ordering the release of a man accused of disseminating a blasphemous text.