11/04/2021
Police in Pakistan’s Punjab province arrested two Christian nurses on blasphemy charges after hospital staff accused them of scratching a sticker with a verse from the Quran written on it off a cupboard. One of the nurses was allegedly attacked with a knife by a colleague.
The nurses, identified as Maryam Lal and third-year student Navish Arooj who work in Civil Hospital in Punjab’s Faisalabad city, were arrested on Friday, according to the United Kingdom-based nonprofit Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement.
The police complaint alleges that a Muslim nurse, identified as Rukhsana, witnessed Arooj scratching and removing the sticker on a hospital cupboard and handing it to Lal.
According to the Washington, D.C.-based American Center for Law and Justice, a video circulated over social media showed an employee, identified as Mohammad Waqas, calling Lal vulgar names and telling a room full of other employees that she tore down a sticker carrying a Muslim prayer.
“Then he said that when he found out about it, he confronted the Christian nurse Mariam. He said, ‘I am a Muslim; how can a Muslim sit quietly over blasphemy of his Prophet,’” the ACLJ report states. “Then he proudly told the employees gathered in the room that he attacked Mariam with a knife, but failed when the blade broke, only injuring her arm.”
An aggressive mob gathered outside the hospital when police came to make the arrest and threatened to kill the two nurses, according to a video posted by Pak Adam TV Ministries.
According to ACLJ, charges have been filed under Section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code outlawing the desecration of the Quran or “extract therefrom,” which is punishable by life in prison.
“This is not the first incident of this kind, but in the past, we have seen how people use this law to settle their personal grudges or punish their rivals,” said CLAAS-UK Director Nasir Saeed in a statement.
“I still remember 2009 when a Lahore Muslim factory owner was accused of committing blasphemy for removing an old calendar inscribed with holy Quranic verses from a wall. A factory worker killed him and two other men, and the enraged mob also assaulted management employees and set the factory on fire.”
Police in Pakistan’s Punjab province arrested two Christian nurses on blasphemy charges after hospital staff accused them of scratching a sticker with a verse from the Quran written on it off a cupboard. One of the nurses was allegedly attacked with a knife by a colleague.