Hindu sanitation employee arrested in Pakistan over alleged blasphemy

A Hindu sanitation employee has been arrested in Pakistan for allegedly committing blasphemy by burning pages of a spiritual e book following a sequence of protests by an extremist group, a senior police official stated on Monday.

Ashok Kumar was arrested after the extremist group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) on Sunday staged protests in entrance of a constructing housing Hindu households over the alleged blasphemy incident that passed off in Hyderabad metropolis on Friday.

A Hindu neighborhood chief in Hyderabad, who didn’t wish to be named, stated the police had arrested Kumar with out finishing up a correct investigation into the incident.

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“The Hindu families living in a building where the incident occurred are scared after the protests organised by the TLP and held outside their building on Sunday,” he stated.

According to the senior police official, the pages of an Islamic research e book have been allegedly burnt on Friday after which the TLP organised protests throughout Hyderabad and demanded the registration of a blasphemy case and the arrest of the accused.

Ravi Dawani, a outstanding Hindu chief, has appealed to the Sindh authorities to carry an neutral inquiry into the matter.

The TLP was declared a proscribed organisation in April final yr after violent protests by the group pressured the federal government to expel the French ambassador over the difficulty of blasphemous cartoons revealed in France.

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan gave his permission to take away the extremist group from the listing of banned outfits in November final yr, succumbing to the hardline Islamists to finish the lethal anti-government agitation.

The TLP was established in 2015 and has held protests through the years, principally in opposition to the alleged desecration of the Prophet.

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Blasphemy is a extremely delicate concern in Muslim-majority Pakistan the place suspects are sometimes attacked and generally lynched by mobs.

In December final yr, a Sri Lankan manufacturing unit supervisor was overwhelmed to dying and set ablaze by a mob in Pakistan over blasphemy allegations. The assault brought about widespread outrage, with then Prime Minister Khan calling it a “day of shame for Pakistan”.

Critics have lengthy known as for reforming Pakistan’s bloodthirsty blasphemy regulation, saying it’s usually abused by influential members of society and extremists to intimidate spiritual minorities and stress opponents into settling private feuds.

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