10 Min Read

October 19, 2024

LAHORE

Jamal* knew his son was innocent.

He knew it even when some officials dressed in plain clothes arrived at his home one day, giving him the dreadful news.

“They came to my house and told me that they had arrested my 16-year-old son for sharing blasphemous content,” says the former mosque imam. He is sitting in a messy room, stuffed with all his belongings. There is a desktop computer, its screen smudged with fingerprints, and Jamal sits there to do his work. Once he had his own place, a one kanal house in Attock. Now he has shifted to a one room portion as he fights for his son’s return and to prove his innocence.

The plainclothesmen were later identified as officials from the Federal Investigation Agency, who told him that his son had shared blasphemous pictures and videos on WhatsApp.

“I asked them to show me proof of these allegations… an FIR or something,” says Jamal. “They told me they would show me the FIR later, and that the case had been registered from Lahore. Then they showed me some pages with alleged blasphemous content and I told them anyone could have produced these by a little bit of photo editing, and framed my son.”

Despite asking them for it, the FIA officials did not produce any forensic report or FIR. “I asked them several times for it but they did not show me anything,” he said. “They only allowed me to meet with my son for a minute. I confronted him and asked him, ‘what are they saying?’ His answer was clear: I don’t know myself.”

Jamal was pushed to keep silent about it.

“Deputy Director Iqbal was there and I was asked what I did for a living, so I told them I was a prayer leader. So they told me never to share any details of my son’s case publicly otherwise a mob could gather and set my house on fire,” says Jamal.

A GANG’S WORK?

Jamal was sure his son had not done what he had been accused of. He set off on his own investigations to find proof of this. As he investigated he realized that he was not the only one who was going through this ordeal. There were others just like him who had been framed over blasphemy charges. The more he dug deeper the more he understood that this was the work of an organized gang – a proper business.

The information he collected revealed that there were hundreds of young people who had fallen prey to this gang, and there were identical FIRs filed against all of them. For example, data from the families of the accused revealed that numerous cases had been filed by the just one individual.

“There were times I doubted – for a month I even pondered if my son had really been at fault,” he says. “But once I met with those families of the other blasphemy accused, and having gone through the FIRs that were filed against their children, I realized there was a mafia operating.”

The other young people who were implicated in similar cases came from social and educational backgrounds which would not create doubt against them, making it almost unbelievable that they could knowingly commit such serious offenses.

“According to the FIRs, those accused include engineers, doctors, and orators of the Holy Quran (Hafiz-e-Quran), and every FIR had the same text and same offences,” he points out. “Around 400, most of them youth, are now languishing in various jails across the country.

“From the 400 blasphemy accused, around 130 of them are in (Lahore’s) Camp Jail, 160 in (Rawalpindi’s) Adiala Jail, and 50 in Karachi’s Central Jail while the rest are in other prisons,” he tells Voicepk, adding that six have been convicted in these blasphemy cases, having been given sentences varying from death to life (over 30 years) imprisonment.

A HONEY TRAP

According to Jamal’s findings most of these young boys and girls were honey-trapped through WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

“These young people are lured through (Facebook pages) to become friends with girls, and are later asked to switch to WhatsApp groups for personal conversations,” he says explaining the gang’s modus operandi. “Once they begin their chatting there, the girls offer them gifts and promise them jobs or relations to gain their trust.

“Next the girl sends an explicit image with holy scriptures written over it, or maybe some other blasphemous content,” he says. “The unsuspecting victim demands to know why she has sent such an image to which she feigns ignorance pretending she does not know what he is talking about. Once the victim inadvertently sends back the image or content, the girl instantly blocks him, and traps him for sharing blasphemous content,” Jamal explains.

All the youngsters in these 400 FIRs were incriminated through the same pictures or content, with some exceptions. He questions how the youth came to share identical pictures with blasphemous content.

The families of these incarcerated blasphemy suspects have compiled data on cases in which a set of individuals appear as their complainants.

“Do these individuals have supercomputers that were able to monitor blasphemous content uploaded on social media from varied locations across Pakistan and lodge complaints with the FIA?” questions Jamal. “Interestingly, nobody else across Pakistan reported this blasphemous content except these same individuals identifying that such and such persons in Lahore, Karachi, Attock, and Lakki Marwat have committed the offence,” he adds. These individuals have been filing blasphemy complaints since 2017, strengthening suspicions that they were all part of a honey-trapping gang.

DEATHS IN CUSTODY

Allegations have also surfaced that the FIA has tortured the accused youth in the presence of the complainants, resulting in some deaths during custody.

“The suspects are subjected to gruesome torture while in custody,” Jamal says, adding that a boy who was tortured in custody was shifted to Adiala Jail but he died there the next day. “We have the video of the boy’s dead body showing torture marks all over.”

Two other blasphemy accused died in Adiala Jail while a girl lost her life in Kot Lakhpat prison also allegedly due to torture.

A distraught mother of an undertrial teenager who has been accused of blasphemy explains the torture he had to encounter.

“My son told me how he was laid on a slab of ice once; at other times they beat him with a thin metal wire to force a confession,” she says.

The families of these blasphemy suspects also claim that the complainants’ lawyers also intimidate them with threats when they come to hearings in the courts.

“The gang has a group of lawyers who threaten the young boys when they are brought to the court for their hearings.” Whenever the judge appears to listen to arguments from the defense counsels, this gang of lawyers starts shouting loudly to intimidate the air of the court. “There is so much pressure on the judge that he seems powerless, and resorts to adjourning the hearings or rejecting bail applications,” says Jamal.

He shares a report by the Special Branch, Lahore, which confirms that a gang is trapping young people in false blasphemy cases, allegedly operating an illegal network under the guise of Islam. The report suggests that this group may be working on a foreign agenda, blackmailing innocent youth for extortion.

Despite allegations against the FIA, the agency has been tasked with investigating the gang’s activities.

Meanwhile the affected families have demanded that the government establish a judicial commission to probe the blasphemy allegations and the FIA’s actions, ensuring no more youth must fall victim to these false accusations.

The FIA spokesperson and officials were contacted for comment but declined to respond. This disturbing trend raises concerns about the exploitation of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and the need for a thorough investigation to protect innocent lives.

* Names have been changed to protect the identity of persons

source https://voicepk.net/2024/10/uncovering-pakistans-blasphemy-business/