Pak man arrested under blasphemy law
Pakistani police have arrested a man in the central Punjab province under the controversial blasphemy law for allegedly burning pages of a book with religious teachings.
Police at Seetal Mari near Multan registered an FIR against Ghulam Mustafa following a complaint from Kareem Bakhsh Saeedi, a cleric of a mosque.
Mustafa's four children go to Saeedi's mosque to study the Quran.
Saeedi alleged that some children assembled outside Mustafa's house and said that pages of the Quran had been burnt there.
Saeedi said he went to Mustafa's house and found him standing near a 'tandoor' (earthen oven) that contained some charred pages.
A mob wanted to lynch Mustafa but he was handed over to police, the Dawn newspaper reported.
Saeedi claimed that the accused's daughters had told him that Mustafa was beating their mother burning pages of the Quran.
However, "there were a few burnt pages of a children's learning book containing holy words and not the pages of the Holy Quran," Saeedi said.
He said that Mustafa's relations with his wife were strained because of some financial problems.
Critics of Pakistan's blasphemy law have complained that it is often misused for settling personal scores or to persecute the country's minority communities.
Two top leaders of the ruling PPP – Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian -- were assassinated this year for challenging the blasphemy law.
