LAHORE, Pakistan - A Pakistani teacher at the centre of
a blasphemy row was in hiding on Friday as her school management denied
all responsibility for the “dirty act” and called for her to be
punished.
Arfa Iftikhar was forced into
hiding after a furious mob stormed Farooqi Girls’ High School in Lahore
over a piece of homework she set that allegedly contained derogatory
references to Islam.
The school management took out front page adverts in two leading newspapers on Friday to deny it had any knowledge of the supposed insults to Islam, saying Iftikhar distributed the work just 10 minutes before the school closed for the Eid Al Adha holiday.
- Government and the police to take legal action against this teacher and investigate her real motive”.
- The school’s headmaster Asim Farooqi has been remanded in custody for 14 days on charges of blasphemy, which can attract death penalty, police officer Azam Manhais said, while a search was under way for Iftikhar.
- Farooqi’s lawyer Jawad Ashraf said they would apply for bail on Saturday and accused police of bowing to the mob over the headmaster’s arrest.
Activists say Pakistan’s
harsh blasphemy laws are often abused to settle personal scores, and
Ashraf said the possibility of a conspiracy against the school, one of
the most successful in Lahore, could not be ruled out.
Farooqi’s son Sameer Asim Farooqi, one of the school’s administrators, said the way the case had panned out was “strange”.
Source: AFP
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