In what attorneys in Pakistan termed a “huge ray of hope,” a federal high court on Tuesday directed the federal government to form an inquiry commission inside 30 days to analyze blatant abuse of blasphemy laws.
Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) ordered the formation of the body to analyze widespread misuse of the cruel laws, strengthened throughout the Eighties by military ruler Gen. Zia-ul-Haq in an apparent bid to win over Islamist groups and safeguard perceptions of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and the Quran.
Justice Khan issued the order while hearing a case involving multiple blasphemy cases that got here with allegations of repeated patterns of abuse. Families of greater than 100 victims of false blasphemy cases alleged that officials from the anti-blasphemy unit of the cybercrime section of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), lawyers and others conspired to honey-trap innocent people, including Christians, into sharing content deemed blasphemous, later using it to extort money by threatening legal motion.
They alleged that those that refused to pay were prosecuted under blasphemy laws, exposing them to vigilante violence. Over the years, several individuals accused of blasphemy have been killed extra-judicially by Muslim extremists, in line with various research groups.
The petition within the Islamabad High Court was first filed in September 2024, and the court held not less than 42 hearings before issuing Tuesday’s directive to the federal government to form the investigative commission inside 30 days. The high court justice said the commission must complete its inquiry inside 4 months, even though it could request an extension from the court if crucial.
The Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) has documented 701 blasphemy cases between 1947 and 2021, with 1,415 individuals accused, 1,308 men and 107 women. At least 89 people were killed and 30 injured in related violence. Among those killed were 72 men and 17 women, it stated.
The data showed a pointy rise in cases following the 1986 amendments introduced by Haq that made blasphemy a capital offence. Before those changes, only 11 cases had been reported, with three people killed.
The National Commission for Human Rights, in its latest report covering the period from October 2023 to July 2024, raised alarm over a surge in blasphemy charges, allegedly fueled by entrapment through pornographic and blasphemous web sites.
“The investigation’s findings highlighted a troubling trend: a pointy increase in registration of blasphemy cases, the vast majority of which were initiated by the FIA’s cybercrime unit, incessantly in collaboration with a non-public entity,” it stated.
The commission linked the rise in cases to the implementation of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act of 2018, noting that young men were targeted through entrapment tactics involving female operatives with fake identities who lured them into blasphemous activities online, leading to their subsequent arrests.
“This pattern, which has escalated significantly over time, calls for a comprehensive review of the roles and accountability of each government and personal entities involved in such cases,” the report stated.
The report also noted that 11 blasphemy cases were reported in 2020, nine in 2021, 64 in 2022, 213 in 2023 and 767 through July 2024. The victims of false blasphemy charges include people from all faiths, but the vast majority of them are Muslims.
The data compiled by the CRSS showed that those accused of blasphemy between 1947-2021 include 947 Muslims and 421 non-Muslims, while the religion of 47 was unknown. Among the non-Muslims accused, 225 were Christians, followed by 174 Ahmadis, 20 Hindus and one Sikh and Buddhist each.
In one of the vital high-profile cases, Punjab Gov. Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by his own security guard in 2011 after he publicly called for reforming the blasphemy laws.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the court also expressed concern over the “disappearance” of a Komal Ismail, alias “Imaan,” a lady believed to be a central figure in several ongoing blasphemy-related cases. She was allegedly used to honey-trap several people accused of blasphemy.
Komal went missing in November, two months after the petition was filed. The court had earlier ordered the blocking of her national identity card and barred her from leaving the country after she failed to look in court.
“Her life could also be in peril. What motion can the [government] agency soak up such a situation?” the justice asked, expressing concern over her safety.
‘Ray of hope’
Lawyers representing petitioning families said the Islamabad High Court’s verdict gave hope for innocent victims of the blasphemy law.
“This is a big ray of hope and it’s the primary time that the families have felt heard,” said attorney Imaan Mazari-Hazar, who represented among the families of arrested men and girls, to reporters after the hearing. “Hundreds of youths have been falsely roped into cases of such a sensitive nature that the stigma will last eternally even in the event that they are acquitted.”
Another petitioning lawyer, Hadi Ali Chattha, told the media after the decision that he hoped the proposed commission would expose the nexus between the FIA and Islamist lawyers behind the surge in blasphemy cases.
“The lawyers of the ‘blasphemy business group’ tried their best to subvert the proceedings of the case, but we appreciate the judge for handling this sensitive matter properly,” he said.
Chattha said his team had filed a writ petition within the Islamabad High Court based on a report by the Special Branch of the Punjab Police that said a gang based in the dual cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi was fabricating blasphemous content and entrapping innocent youths in fake cases for monetary gain.
“We moved the high court for looking for its direction for formation of a high-powered investigative commission to probe the Special Branch report,” he said. “Responding to the high court’s notice, the federal government, through an extra attorney general on Jan. 31, said that the federal government was concerned concerning the reports of the activities of the gang and was able to form a commission, however it required guidelines from the high court on the best way forward.”
The judge really useful that the commission include a retired judge of the Supreme Court or high court, a retired senior officer of the FIA who understood the difficulty, and an authority in information technology. Chattha added that a serving judge by law couldn’t develop into a part of the inquiry, because it was not a judicial inquiry.
On Feb. 28, the attorney general informed the court that the federal government had been unable to seek out suitable members for the commission attributable to the sensitivity of the difficulty, he said.
“Meanwhile, the members of the alleged blasphemy business gang told the court that they were against the formation of the commission since the court had not given them a possibility to clarify their case,” Chattha said. “The judge told them to record their statements before the commission, but they insisted that the court should hear them.”
The judge granted their request but ordered that proceedings could be broadcast live to tell the tale YouTube for information for most of the people, he said.
“Their lawyers are actually claiming that they haven’t been given a likelihood to present their case, whereas the very fact is that every one their counsels got sufficient time to argue their case, after which we were told to submit our rebuttals,” he said. “Now that the court has given its verdict, they try to propagate that they weren’t given a possibility to talk, which is contrary to the facts.”
Commenting on the 4 months given to the commission for investigating the difficulty, Chattha said he hoped the inquiry could be accomplished within the stipulated time attributable to the provision of relevant data.
A leaked 2024 report by the Punjab Police into the sudden spike in cases found that “a suspicious gang was trapping youth in blasphemy cases” and is perhaps motivated by financial gain.
The Legal Commission on Blasphemy Pakistan (LCBP) is reportedly probably the most lively of attorney groups prosecuting young men in Pakistan. Sheraz Ahmad Farooqi, one in all the group’s leaders, told AFP in October that “God has chosen them for this noble cause.”
In recent years, several youths have been convicted and handed death sentences, although no execution has ever been carried out for blasphemy in Pakistan.
“We will fully support the probe commission and are confident that our voices will finally be listened to, our concerns can be heard, and the reality will come out,” a relative of one in all the suspects who requested anonymity out of fear of backlash told AFP.
Pakistan, whose population is greater than 96% Muslim, is ranked No. 8 on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of probably the most difficult places to be a Christian.
 In what attorneys in Pakistan termed a “huge ray of hope,” a federal high court on Tuesday directed the federal government to form...){kind=link}