A court on Tuesday jailed a 42-year-old Muslim man for life for burning a Quran, officials said.
Naseem Ahmed, a father of three, was arrested last June on charges of desecrating the holy Quran in Lasda village in Azad Kashmir, about 40 kilometres east of Muzaffarabad, and charged under the blasphemy laws.
“We heard up to 15 witnesses. His mother also testified against the accused and we have given him life imprisonment,” Judge Ameerullah Khan told AFP.
Ahmed said he would appeal the sentence, professing his innocence and saying he had no idea that a Quran was among a pile of books he set alight.
“My younger brother and sister didn’t care about their school books and used to leave them scattered around the house,” Ahmed told AFP, speaking by telephone from custody.
“One day I came home and got angry at seeing the books scattered. I collected them up and burnt them. My mother admonished me, telling me that among the books I burnt, was a copy of Holy Quran,” he said. “The neighbour overheard and called the police. Members of a rival (Sunni) sect with whom I had been clashing in the past suddenly became active in this case that is why I have been convicted,” he said.
