A Mad Christian Charged With Blasphemy Acquitted

A Mad Christian Charged With Blasphemy Acquitted

LAHORE ; (Correspondent CCNews Portal ) –A mentally deranged Pakistani Christian men who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a lower court on blasphemy charged in

2004, was acquitted by Lahore high court on Friday, January 19, 2007. Khalil Tahir, defence counsel of Shahbaz Masih, told ANS about the acquittal of Masih in an exclusive interview on Friday.

Shahbaz Masih was an escapee from Government hospital for psychiatric diseases in Lahore, Pakistan .He was admitted to the hospital on August 23, 2000 after being diagnosed with Bipolar Effective Disorder. He fled from the hospital on September 4, 2000. But a trouble of a more horrific magnitude him as he was charged with torching pages of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, by a prayer leader of the Imam Masjid Mosque, Qari Muhammad Rafique, a resident of 8, Ismail park street, Faisalabad.

The complainant wrote in the application that he submitted to the police station on sargodha Road, Faisalabad, that he was teaching the police station on sargodha Road, Faisalabad, that he was teaching the Quran to student at the mosque when he heard the the voices from the nearby graveyard. The complainant went on to say in his application that, as he came out of the mosque with two muslim men named Muhammad Jamil and Muhammad Ali, they saw that Masih was trampling upon pages of Quran and was throwing them on the graveyard after having torched them .

The police First Information Report (FIR) number 315/2001, under seation 295 –A and B of Pakistan penel code, was lodged at the police station and, as a consequence, Masih was arrested on June 4.2001.

The Muslim cleric along with Muhammad Jamil, Muhammad Ali, the porsecution witnesses handed over the cross-wearing Masih to police after subjecting him to a thrashing.