It is 2011. Court proceedings against Mumtaz Qadri are underway. Scores of lawyers supporting extreme religious groups, openly come out to support the killer.
The pressure of these groups is visible in the courtroom which is packed with Qadri’s supporters. This is how some elements within the legal community raise their voice in the courts and put pressure.
Blasphemy trials are conducted under pressure -- from extremist groups and their like-minded groups in lawyers to play politics.
In a recent judgment in Sawan Masih case, additional session judge said, "the defence (of accused) counsel has failed to prove any malafide and the prosecution side pleaded the case beyond any shadow of doubt. Hence, the court awards death sentence to the accused."
The accused has filed an appeal against the judgment in the Lahore High Court. The counsel of the victim, Naeem Shakir, says his team had been contesting the case for one year and found conflicting statements and flaws in investigation. Even the Supreme Court of Pakistan took notice of these flaws and conflicting statements while taking a suo motu notice of the incident which led to the burning of more than 170 houses in Joseph Colony where the incident allegedly occurred.
In 1997, some extremists entered into the chambers of a former high court judge, Arif Iqbal Bhatti, who had acquitted an accused blasphemer three years ago, and shot him dead.
After declaring death sentence for Mumtaz Qadri, the judge quickly slipped from the courtroom via the backdoor and later, according to reports, left the country.
In 2000, Justice Nazir Akhtar of Lahore High Court, while hearing a blasphemy case, said that no one had the authority to pardon blasphemy and that anyone accused of blasphemy should be killed on the spot as a religious obligation.
A Roman Catholic bishop, John Joseph, shot himself in 1998 in protest against the blasphemy laws. A former Faisalabad Bishop, he was also known as "Awami Bishop", shot himself in the head in front of the Sahiwal local sessions court in May 1998 to protest the death sentence given to an alleged Christian blasphemer, Ayub Masih. The local court had sentenced Ayub Masih to death while the Supreme Court acquitted him in August 2002.
On May 5, 1998, he had written a letter titled, "The final step against 295 C" to local newspapers on the official paper of the Faisalabad Catholic Diocese, mentioning the efforts of civil society, media, parliamentarians, and foreign embassies to abolish such discriminatory laws.
Shakir, who has been defending people accused of blasphemy for the past two decades, says there have been pressures on the courts and the defence counsels. "I remember when we used to go to Gujranwala to plead the case of Ayub Masih, there were long lines of extremists on both sides of the court premises with huge banners and placards against the accused and we had to pass through them," he recalls. However, that pressure temporarily subsided after the sacrifice of Bishop John Joseph.
"The major difference which I see is that at that time though there were huge protests against the accused but there was no fear of being killed. Now there are fewer protests within the courts but more cases of target killing."
National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), a minority rights group, in its report calculates that the number of blasphemy accusations in the year 2012 increased to 113 as compared to 79 in 2011. There were 56 Muslim, 15 Christian and 5 Ahmadi victims 2011, whereas 94 Muslims (including 72 Shias in one incident in Bhakkar), 12 Christians, and 5 Ahmadis were accused under the blasphemy law.
"Among the cases during the past two years, at least 14 or 11 per cent accused were suffering from a mental disorder; eight persons were charged on account of text messages that were reportedly received from their cell phone, something falling in the area of technological abuse and cyber crimes. At least four cases involving hundreds of accused had sectarian underpinnings whereas three cases were registered by family members owing to disputes between husband and wife, son and father," the facts based on reported cases reveal.
It also appears that Punjab is the epicentre of such cases with a huge population and with organised pressure groups to manipulate the case proceedings. Of the total cases, around 75 per cent are lodged in the Punjab.
It can be observed in courts these days that a certain set of lawyers come with every complainant in a blasphemy case, showing affiliation with extremists groups like Khatam-e-Nabuwwat (an offshoot of hardliner Deoband groups) and they become counsel of the complainant voluntarily. Later, they start bringing extremist elements in the courts to put pressure on judges.
"Ideally, no judge should take any pressure. And if they have sectarian pressures or threat they can report it to the respective chief justice," says a Karachi-based former justice, Nasir Aslam Zahid.
He believes it is up to the chief justice of the province to take decisions or give directions on certain issues to ensure justice. "If a chief justice thinks that blasphemy cases must be heard on a priority basis or their appeals be heard swiftly because of its sensitivity, he can give this direction on his own," he says.