It was the afternoon of April 19. Fazal Abbas was sitting on a charpoy in his house along with other family members in Nangal Mirza village in upper Punjab. Three women knocked at the door, among them one from the same village who knew the family well. They said they had come just to say hello as they were passing by the house," Azhar Hussain, the uncle of Fazal Abbas narrates.
"Few minutes later, one woman, Afshan Khan, asked the family if she could use washroom. On her return, posing to sit down, she came very close to Fazal Abbas and immediately took out a pistol from her bag and fired at him. The bullet crossed Abbas’s chest and he fell from the cot. The attackers tried to run away but the family members caught them in the street," he goes on.
Abbas died in hospital in a couple of hours. The arrested women, reportedly, confessed before the police that they killed Abbas because he had committed blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and other prophets and they could not tolerate it. It’s a rare occurrence that women have targeted a blasphemy accused.
Fazal Abbas, belonged to a Shia sect and this fact was quite known in the village and Pasrur city. He was accused of blasphemy under Section 295-A of Pakistan Penal Code on 10th of Muharram in 2004 for uttering ‘objectionable’ remarks against Prophet Abraham during a speech in a procession to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussain (AS). In his speech, according to First Information Report, he drew a comparison of Prophet Ibrahim with Imam Hussain. According to documents available with TNS, Qari Shafiq Dogar, a local leader of (the then) Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, anti-Shia sectarian organisation, lodged a case against him and some others for objectionable speech.
Fazal Abbas, had moved the court against the case and sought bail. Meanwhile, had to leave Pakistan amid serious life threats to him and his protectors, the documents further read. He left Pakistan and sought refuge in Denmark. After nearly 13 years, Abbas, recently, came back to Pakistan to clear his case and spend the rest of his life here. He also got bail from a local court in the case with the next hearing scheduled on April 25.
The day after his murder, his relatives, protested loudly putting his body on the main road of the city.
"Fazal Abbas had not committed any blasphemy. There was a dispute about entry of the Muharram procession in a street and Sipah-e-Sahaba people were opposing it. Later, they used this speech to take revenge and lodged blasphemy case," Azhar Hussain, uncle of victim and complainant of his murder tells TNS. "It was a sectarian conflict that was translated into blasphemy against us." He says the anti-Shia group managed to add 295-C and Anti-Terrorism Act sections to his case, charges which were later removed by the court but it was too late and Abbas had left the country amid life threats.
Hussain believes Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a militant offshoot of this sectarian organisation, is behind this target killing in the name of blasphemy. "They were following the case throughout and started following the new hearings too, warning Abbas to be ready for consequences. We believe these girls were sent by them. Afshan, the killer, has been studying and teaching in one of the seminaries of this group."
"There is no doubt that Qari Shafiq, local leader of a (now) banned sectarian offshoot, was behind the blasphemy accusation and lodging case against Afzal in 2004," Nadeem Ashraf, the police officer who is investigating this murder, tells TNS. "However, till now, these women have not admitted to any connection with this group," he says.
The officer confirms that the main accused, Afshan Khan, has been studying in a religious seminary and runs a small seminary in her village Urdu Afghanan. "She got the pistol from Asad, a young man of the same village whom she knew," Ashraf says. "Afshan had been training herself to shoot with a toy-gun. The man who gave her pistol is absconding," he adds, quoting from her confessional statement.
Old record of this blasphemy accusation case, presented before the Lahore High Court, shows public incitement through rallies, speeches and pamphlets calling for killing this ‘blasphemer’, his aides and protectors. "Fazal Abbas and his aides are wajibul qatal (deserve to be killed) and who so ever will kill them will go to heaven," an old pamphlet reads, adding "police are not arresting him so it is the duty of Muslims to kill them."
Court record shows that Qari Shafiq’s name, the person alleged to have incited people to kill Abbas, is included in the fourth schedule. There are several cases lodged against him under the Anti-Terrorism Act but he is moving freely even today.
Misuse of Blasphemy law and incitement to mob violence is increasing in society. Experts, police and even government functionaries believe the blasphemy law is being used for political purposes in Pakistan.
"There is a systemic misuse of blasphemy laws through organised campaigns by extremist groups. There is need to build a national consensus on reforming the blasphemy law before it is too late. We have to take some bold steps to stop this," says Zahid Hussain, columnist and security analyst.