Daily Times

LAHORE: A Pakistani court acquitted 112 suspects in the 2013 torching of hundreds of Christian homes in Lahore over a rumour that one of the residents there had blasphemed, a lawyer said on Sunday.

In March 2013, more than 125 homes in Lahore’s Joseph Colony were burned by a mob of more than 3,000 people responding to rumours that a local Christian had made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

No one was killed in the incident but there was widespread damage to the property of Christians living in the neighbourhood.

Defence lawyer Ghulam Murtaza Chaudhry said an anti-terrorism court in Lahore had acquitted 112 people accused of torching and ransacking hundreds of houses.

“They were acquitted by the court because of lack of evidences against them,” Murtaza told a foreign news agency. “The state witnesses could not identify the accused and their statements were also contradictory.”

A road sweeper in his late twenties, Sawan Masih told police after his arrest on blasphemy charges that the real reason for the blasphemy allegation was a property dispute between him and a friend who spread the rumour.

This month, the Senate’s human rights panel said it would debate how to prevent the country’s blasphemy laws being applied “unfairly”.