LAHORE: A man, after 11 years of imprisonment, has been acquitted by the Lahore High Court (LHC) here on Wednesday. The trial court had earlier sentenced him to lifetime imprisonment, charging him with blasphemy.
According to the details, the complainant, Abdul Ghani, had accused Liaquat Ali of burning a Holy Quran manuscript. Ghani said that on January 12, 2009, he and two other men heard voices from a house, and when they entered, they saw him burning the manuscript. He further added that they tried to stop him, but Liaquat attacked them with a stick.
When the case was not pleaded by any lawyer, the accused contacted Sheikhupura District Jail Superintendent and pleaded the case in LHC himself after which Advocate Ahmad Bodla got appointed as the counsel from the state.
During the hearing, the counsel from the complainant said that they had recovered the ashes of the manuscript, on which Justice Shehram Sarwar commented as to how did they determine that it was the Holy Quran’s ashes. He also added that the case had multiple loopholes, and there was a possibility that there was something else in the matter’s background.