ISLAMABAD: The Su­­preme Court on Wednes­day approved bail for an individual accused of blasphemy, Zubair Saeed Sabri, who has been detained for the past seven months.

The bail was set against a surety bond of Rs50,000, with a direction that due to the sensitivity of the matter, a senior police officer not below the rank of a superintendent of police (SP) should handle blasphemy charges with due diligence.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, took up Zubair Sabri’s bail plea.

The court ordered the Islamabad police to conduct further inquiry into the blasphemy allegations.

Justice Isa wondered why the nation wanted to give the world the message that the trend of filing blasphemy cases was rising in the country and even personal feuds were given religious colour.

During the hearing, the court also summoned Islamabad SP Rukhsar Mehdi to explain why the police entered the residence of Zubair Sabri without any search warrant, adding that it seemed that no home in the capital city was saved from the highhandedness of the police.

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The court noted that the police were always shy of registering cases of dacoity or robbery but entered the homes of the blasphemy accused without any warrant.

“Where is the sanctity and respect for privacy?” Justice Isa wondered and asked whether the police officer’s residence could be searched without warrants.

The chief justice reminded that the Police Order 2002 suggests a punishment of five years for entering a house without a warrant.

When the court was told that the police were also scared of blasphemy cases and they registered such cases as early as possible, Justice Isa wondered who would be courageous if the police became timid.

Justice Isa also lamented that the complainant in the present case took his friend to a spiritual figure to have him blessed, where he saw an “inappropriate” picture and filed a case and also wondered whether the Holy Quran mentions spiritual figures.

A parliamentary body was informed in October that 215 individuals had been arrested under blasphemy charges, with the highest number of arrests, i.e. 78, made in Sindh.

Members of the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights were informed that Khyber Pakhtun­khwa followed next with 55 people in prison in blasphemy cases, Punjab had 18 people in prison over similar charges, while Balochistan had one. As many as 27 people were in prison in Islamabad.

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Referring to the Jaranwala incident, where mobs burnt Christian churches and homes, the meeting learnt that on Aug 16, 2023, a deliberate act intended to malign a local resident through the wrongful placement of blasphemous material near his home had triggered a devastating ripple effect.

The incident was revealed to have stemmed from personal enmity and evolved into an egregious case of using blasphemy laws to target individuals.

Alarmingly, such tactics were employed by Muslims against Muslims, Muslims against non-Muslims, and non-Muslims against non-Muslims, the meeting observed.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2024