Pak court gives death sentence to university lecturer on blasphemy charges

A District and Sessions court here on Saturday awarded death penalty to former university lecturer Junaid Hafeez on charges of blasphemy.

Hafeez, who was a visiting lecturer at the Department of English Literature of the Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) in Multan, was arrested by the police on March 23, 2013, and was booked on blasphemy charges. The trial of the case began in 2014.

While pronouncing the sentence, Additional Sessions Judge Kashif Qayyum ordered Hafeez to pay a fine of Rs 0.5 million under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), in the case of default he will undergo further imprisonment of six months, The Dawn reported.

The former university lecturer was awarded life imprisonment under Section 295-B and 10 years of rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 1,00,000 under Section 295-A.

Hafeez has been lodged in the high-security ward number 2 of New Central Jail Multan. His previous attorney, Rashid Rehman, was shot dead in his office in 2017.

Before the court's verdict was pronounced, parents of Hafeez had appealed to former Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa to look into the matter and sought justice for their son, fearing for his mental and physical well-being.

They also said that Hafeez has been languishing in jail for the last six years on false charges of blasphemy.

"Due to transfer of many judges, delaying tactics of prosecution witnesses, and difficulties finding adequate legal counsel for the defence because of the sensitive nature of the case, our son continues to await justice in a fabricated case," Junaid's parents wrote to the then Chief Justice.