Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A charged crowd at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport on Sunday assaulted singer-turned-evangelist Junaid Jamshed for allegedly committing blasphemy.

A handful of people chanted slogans against the preacher, claiming he had committed blasphemy, and lunged at him. They struck several blows and then momentarily released Jamshed, only to attack him again. “We have been looking for you,” one male voice is heard saying in the footage. “Hit him, him him,” they shouted.

Visibly shaken, Jamshed maintained silence for the most part and offered the crowd to ‘talk’ as the men confronted him. Jamshed then retreated into the airport’s arrival lounge.

The episode comes over a year after a controversy that pushed Jamshed into hiding, as he became the target of wrath over blasphemy allegations. He later offered a public apology in which he said he was ‘accepting his mistake’ and asked for forgiveness.

The blasphemy case against him was registered in December 2014 on the directives of a district and sessions court. Jamshed was booked over one of his televised sermon that was thought to contain blasphemous remarks about a wife of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).

The case had been registered on complaint of Mobin Qadri, a leader of the Sunni Tehreek, at the Risala police station under Sections 295-C and 298-A of the Pakistan Penal Code, police said at that time.