On Thursday, a sessions court judge in Pakistan’s Rawalpindi district sentenced to death Zafar Bhatti (51), the longest-serving blasphemy convict who has been rotting in Pakistan jail since 2012. Zafar Bhatti who belongs to the Christian community has been sentenced to death under section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code.
Bhatti, a Christian leader, was arrested on the accusations of sending blasphemous text messages insulting the Prophet Muhammad’s mother. According to the reports by the US Commission for International Religious Freedom, Bhatti was tortured into confessing and that the mobile through which the messages were sent never belonged to him. Earlier in the year 2017, he was sentenced to life in prison on similar charges and is lodged in Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi since then.
Pakistan’s longest serving blasphemy victim given death sentence under 295C by a sessions court. Zafar Bhatti, a Christian leader, was arrested in 2012 over allegedly sending blasphemous SMS from a mobile that didn’t belong to him. In 2017 he was given a life sentence. pic.twitter.com/RsBVaLxOql
— Naila Inayat (@nailainayat) January 5, 2022
What had happened
A local Islamic leader back in July 2012 had forced the New Town police station in Rawalpindi to lodge a complaint against an unregistered mobile number for sending messages insulting the mother of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. He threatened that his organisation would take matters into its own hands if investigation for blasphemy was not opened under Section 295-C of the Penal Code. According to Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws, section 295-C of the Penal Code demand mandatory death to anyone who uses derogatory remarks for the Prophet.
An FIR was filed against an unknown person, but the police later arrested Zafar, charging him under section 295-C. Bhatti insisted on his innocence but the police tortured him to confess. Several reports proved that the SIM was not registered to Zafar but was in fact registered to Ghazala Khan.
Interestingly, Ghazala Khan, whose national identity card details had been used to register the SIM in question, was arrested and charged with blasphemy. At her trial in April 2013, the Lahore High Court did not pass judgement against her and instead tried to convince the petitioner to forgive her. She was granted bail.
Tortured to convert to Islam
Zafar Bhatti belongs to a minority community in Pakistan which combines around 1.27 per cent of the total Pakistan population. Bhatti while in prison was tortured by the police to confess the case and also beaten by the Muslim prisoners to convert to Islam. Reports suggest that his food was poisoned which caused bleeding from the nose and mouth and left him in a critical condition for days.
Further, in the year 2014, he was ‘mistakenly’ reported dead. Some rumours circulated that Bhatti had been killed in his prison cell. But later it was found that it was not Bhatti who had been attacked, but the prisoner in the adjacent cell who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy. Zafar had also lodged many appeals to the High Court, but such sessions were repeatedly delayed, says a report by US Commission for International Religious Freedom. After countless torture attempts by the state, the sessions court today has pronounced death sentence to Zafar who is diabetic and a severe heart patient.
