Judge Mohammed Azam Khan set bail at 1 million Pakistani rupees, or about $10,500, a significant sum in a country where many families live on only a few dollars a day. The girl's impoverished family may need outside financial support to free her.The girl is reportedly 14 years old and goes by the name of Rishma. Since her arrest, the Rishma's family had reportedly gone into hiding after recieving death threats.
The young girl, who is suffering from some form of mental impairment, was arrested after an angry mob showed up at a police station in her neighborhood in Islamabad and accused her of burning pages from the Koran, an act punishable by life in prison under the country's harsh blasphemy laws. Her lawyer has denied the allegation.
However, police focused their investigation on the Muslim cleric who had first accused Rishma of blasphemy after multiple eyewitnesses saw him tear out pages from the Koran and place them into a bag the girl was carrying. Imam Khalid Jadoon Chishti was arrested on charges of fabricating evidence and may himself face blasphemy charges since the judge and investigators ruled that Rishma may not known any better while as an Islamic cleric, Chishti knew full well his actions were punishable under Pakistan's blasphemy laws. Chishti reportedly planted the evidence in an attempt to force all Christians out of the Islamabad neighborhood.
In 2009, a Pakistani farmhand named Asia Bibi was beaten by a Muslim mob and arrested by police under the nation's blasphemy laws after she reportedly got into an argument with Muslim co-workers and allegedly insulted the Islamic prophet Mohammed. In January 2011, the governor of Punjab- who was critical of Pakistan's blasphemy laws and had called for a full pardon in the Bibi case- was shot to death by his own bodyguard. Two months later, the only Christian member of Pakistan's cabinet was fatally shot by gunmen in an ambush. A Muslim cleric said that Bibi or her family would be killed if she recieved a pardon.
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