A 22-year-old student was sentenced to death by a court in Pakistan while a 17-year-old was sent to jail for life on charges of blasphemy over WhatsApp messages, reported BBC.
In Pakistan’s Punjab Province, the judges of the court said the 22-year-old was sentenced to death for preparing videos and pictures that contained allegedly derogatory words about Prophet Muhammad and his wives. The court said the student shared the blasphemous content to outrage the religious feelings of Muslims.
For sharing the material, the teenager was sentenced to life imprisonment in Pakistan. However, both denied the charges. Their lawyers argued they had been “trapped in a false case”, reported the BBC.
In 2022, the complaint against the students was filed by the cybercrime unit of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Lahore.
The complainant alleged that he received the videos and photos with blasphemous content from three different mobile phone numbers. After examining his phone, the probe agency established that “obscene material” was sent to the complainant.
Appeal in the High Court
The father of the 22-year-old student told the BBC that he was filing an appeal in the High Court of Lahore against the death sentence verdict to his son.
In Pakistan, blasphemy is punishable by death. Laws against blasphemy were first codified by British rulers in India and expanded in the 1980s under the military government of Pakistan.