Police in Mirpur Khas have arrested a journalist for allegedly insulting a Hindu deity and hurting religious sentiments over a complaint filed by a Hindu activist.
A Hindu activist Ramesh Kumar filed a complaint against journalist Aslam Baloch for sharing haring a caricature on social media that portrayed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan as a Hindu deity.
Police registered the blasphemy case under the charges of hurting religious sentiments and hate speech, BBC Urdu reported.
The social media post by the journalist was widely condemned on social media.
Blasphemy laws in Pakistan usually target minorities and are often misused to settle personal scores.
27-year-old Islamabad resident Aneeqa Ateeq is on death row after a court found her guilty of committing “blasphemy” on Whatsapp last year. Aneeqa Ateeq has maintained that she was deliberately dragged into a religious discussion by her accuser after she refused his advances. The Lahore High Court is yet to take up her appeal against the death sentence.
Earlier, an anti-terrorism court in Peshawar awarded a death sentence to a man for committing blasphemy and other religion-related offenses on social media.
A resident of Punjab’s Talagang district filed a complaint with the FIA Counter Terrorism Wing Islamabad against the convict, accusing him of uploading blasphemous content on social media and a Whatsapp group.
