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Man in custody over ‘desecration’

Staff Report

KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Wednesday ordered a 38-year-old man charged with blasphemy to be kept in jail custody.

Police sources said that Shehzad Samiullah, a resident of Green Town, Karachi, was arrested by the Shah Faisal police on Tuesday after neighbours complained that he had desecrated a copy of the holy Quran.

Samiullah’s family have maintained that he suffers from psychological problems, noting that his condition has prevented him from marrying. Police said that they arrested the man after a neighbourhood mob turned violent and tried to attack him over his apparent violation of rules on the handling of the Quran.

Reuters adds: According to a neighbour, Samiullah had placed a copy of the Quran on the ground, stepped on it and tried to set it alight. “His parents came to see him in jail and they say he is abnormal,” investigating police officer Mohammad Amin told Reuters. “But they have to produce medical evidence to prove this.”

Before a Karachi court ordered his detention on Wednesday, Samiullah had insisted that he came from a religious family.

“I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know why I did this. I felt like I was instigated by the Devil,” a sobbing Samiullah told Reuters outside the court. Human rights groups in Pakistan routinely criticise the country’s anti-blasphemy law, contending that it is often abused to settle disputes or religious rivalry. “We keep track of people arrested under this law and have raised the issue with the government several times but it is unable to resist the pressure of the fanatics,” said HRCP Chairman Iqbal Haider.

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