By Massimo Introvigne —
On August 12, in the Kasur area of Punjab, police registered a criminal case involving blasphemy charges against two women—one being the owner of a private school and the other her maid—in Rai Kalan village for purportedly desecrating and damaging pages of the Holy Quran.
A video of the incident that took place on Friday went viral on social media by Saturday. Hundreds of individuals from neighboring villages such as Badarpur, Rai Kalan, and Havalian assembled outside the school building after announcements were made via mosque loudspeakers.
A significant police presence arrived in the village to manage the situation. An initial report was filed based on a complaint from Kashif Ali, the prayer leader at the village mosque, against the two women accused of blasphemy.
Kasur has emerged in the last decade as the nation’s capital of fabricated blasphemy accusations, most of them involving alleged desecrations of pages of the Holy Quran. In 2014, Christians Shama and Shahzad Masih, accused of blasphemy, were burned alive by an angry mob. Dozens of houses of Christians have been destroyed in periodical eruptions of violence. — Bitter Winter
