Multan, May 31: A court has cleared 10 minority Shiite Muslims of blasphemy charges for allegedly removing posters bearing Quranic verses at a Sunni mosque in Pakistan, police said today. The defendants were ordered released yesterday by judge Abdul Qadir Shad in Multan, 630 km south of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, police official Saghir Wattoo said.
The judge ruled that the prosecution did not submit sufficient evidence, Wattoo said. Police arrested the suspects last year in Vehari, 150 km northeast of Multan, after prayer leader Ghulam Farid complained that they had destroyed posters he had put up inside his mosque.
Pakistan's blasphemy laws have come under criticism by international and Pakistani human rights groups. They complain that the laws are easily abused and that the burden of proof is on those accused. Only the word of an accuser is needed to prosecute a suspect on blasphemy charges, which can carry the death penalty.
About 20 per cent of Pakistan's 145 million people are Shiites and about 77 per cent Sunnis. Most of the remaining three per cent are Christians.
Hundreds of people are believed to be in Pakistani jails charged under the blasphemy law, most of them members of the country's religious minorities. Bureau Report