TO anyone familiar with the fabrications that often surround allegations of blasphemy, the revelation that the imam of a local mosque involved in producing the `evidence` of a young Christian girl`s alleged blasphemous act blatantly tampered with the religious paraphernalia will have come as no surprise. What has come as a welcome surprise is that a witness came forward and that the state took action. Khalid Jadoon, the local imam, has been taken in judicial custody, accused of inserting pages of the Quran into the bag containing other religious material that the girl is alleged to have burned. The muezzin of the same mosque who gave his testimony in an Islamabad court on Saturday claims that the imam wanted to beef up the `evidence` to ensure that the girl`s family would have to leave the neighbourhood for good.
Awful as Khalid Jadoon`s alleged act is, the argument that he himself should now be tried under the blasphemy laws is misplaced. The misuse of religious laws cannot be rectified by turning those flawed laws against those who try to misuse them.
Instead, what is needed is a national debate and wide-ranging overhaul of laws that are clearly prone to abuse at the hands of those with personal vendettas and of bigoted thought.
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