Madrassah student and teacher accused of blasphemy

ISLAMABAD: A teenager boy and his religious teacher have been accused of blasphemy; police told AFP Friday, after the student was allegedly caught burning pages of the holy Quran.

The teenager, a student at a Madrassah in Kasur district in Punjab province, was spotted by residents burning the pages of the holy Quran, local senior police official Miraz Arif Rasheed told AFP.

When asked what he was doing, he said his teacher had told him that burning was the correct way to dispose of old Qurans.

Religious scholars approve of two ways: by wrapping the holy pages carefully in a cloth and burying it in the ground, or placing it in flowing water so the ink is washed away from the pages.

Any disrespect to the Quran is punishable with life imprisonment under the blasphemy laws.

Such disrespect could also spark mob violence: an angry mob torched a factory in Punjab province in November 2015 after one of its employees was accused of burning pages from the holy Quran in the boiler.

"Both the student and (teacher) have been booked under the blasphemy law section 295B, which contains life imprisonment as the only punishment," Rasheed said.

The case emerged one day after the Supreme Court delayed an appeal against the death sentence meted out to a Christian woman Asia Bibi in 2010 for blasphemy.

Her final court appeal was due to be held Thursday in Islamabad, but was delayed after one of the three-judge bench claimed he had a conflict of interest. No new date has been set.