Karachi: A police investigator has said the 17-year-old student arrested for writing an allegedly blasphemous remark in an examination paper had admitted that he had written the offending material out of frustration when he was not able to answer a question in the paper.
“Sami Ullah wrote a blasphemous comment in an examination, which examiners reported to police,” police investigator Qudrat Shah Lodhi told AFP.
He said the Muslim student apologised to the exam board in the financial capital of Karachi, but the apology was not accepted and the matter was reported to police.
“Police arrested the boy in Karachi’s North Nazimabad area on January 29 and sent him to jail on judicial remand,” Lodhi said.
The boy’s father is a civil servant. Police refused to divulge the offending comment in the exam paper, out of fear that they would fall foul of the blasphemy law for repeating it.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the Pakistan government to drop the charges immediately and ensure the teen’s safe release from detention.
“Pakistan has set the standard for intolerance when it comes to misusing blasphemy laws, but sending a schoolboy to jail for something he scribbled on an exam paper is truly appalling,” said Bede Sheppard, senior children’s rights researcher at HRW.
“It’s bad enough that a school official flagged it, but for police and judicial authorities to go ahead and lock up a teenager under these circumstances is mind boggling.”
The blasphemy laws have come under intense scrutiny since the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, who had campaigned to change them. –Agencies
Our correspondent adds: In an unusual case, a first-year student has been sent to the juvenile prison on judicial remand for allegedly writing blasphemous remarks in the answer-sheets of an intermediate exam held some nine months ago.
The judicial magistrate central sent Syed Sami Ullah on judicial remand on the complaint of the Board of Intermediate Education (BIEK).
The controller of examination lodged a complaint with the North Nazimabad police station, alleging that the teenager committed blasphemy by writing sacrilegious remarks during the annual examinations held in April last year.
The student was arrested by the North Nazimabad police after they received a written complainant from the BIEK’s Controller of Examination.
Source: The News
Date:2/3/2011