Blasphemy, prosecution & reality

2026-03-02 - 22:14

Adv Qaiser A Raja IN recent years, a troubling narrative has steadily taken root in public discourse: the claim that an organized “blasphemy business group” operates in Pakistan, allegedly comprising lawyers, law enforcement personnel and private actors who conspire to entrap innocent citizens in false blasphemy cases—often for monetary gain. The allegation is circulated with alarming confidence and is frequently treated as settled fact. But a closer look at the official record tells a markedly different story. The most important point is also the most overlooked: the Pakistani state has never acknowledged the existence of any such group. Much of this narrative appears to stem from a confidential document linked to Punjab Police’s Special Branch. In media commentary and public panels, this document is routinely described as an “intelligence report” or an “official finding.” That description is not just misleading – it is categorically false. During proceedings before the Lahore High Court, DIG Special Branch Faisal Raja stated clearly and unequivocally that the document was nothing more than a source report—an initial, unverified piece of information passed from one police unit to another. A source report is not an inquiry. It is not an indictment. And it certainly does not qualify as evidence. This clarification was not made offhand. It was formally recorded by the High Court and forms part of the judicial order sheet. Subsequently, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) conducted an independent inquiry, specifically in response to the concerns raised in the source report. The outcome was clear: no supporting evidence was found. The FIA submitted this conclusion to the Lahore High Court, where it now sits in the official judicial record. That should have been the end of the matter. Instead, the document was repeatedly re-framed in public commentary as though it confirmed the existence of a criminal network—an illustrative case of how hearsay, when repeated enough times, can begin to masquerade as fact. The second pillar of the “blasphemy business group” theory is the 2023 report issued by the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR). While the report does raise important concerns, it falters on a critical front: it offers no evidentiary backing for its most serious allegations. Chief among these is the claim that some individuals are victims of “blasphemous entrapment”—where a single instance of sharing offensive content is used as the basis for arrest. Yet the report does not cite a single FIR, charge sheet or completed investigation to substantiate this. Not one. This absence is not a clerical oversight; it is the foundation crumbling beneath the report’s core argument. If cases of “one-time sharing” were common, forensic reports would reflect that. Instead, what appears in actual case files—many spanning dozens, even hundreds, of pages—is a different pattern entirely: sustained and repeated activity, often spread over months or years, involving multiple instances of possession and dissemination. Some files even include DNA testing or auxiliary technical assessments. Perhaps most telling is the silence of the defence in these cases: not one accused individual has challenged the forensic or technical reports in court. There have been no calls for counter-forensics, no demands for independent audits and no requests for re-examination of digital evidence. In legal terms, such unchallenged evidence is generally deemed to have been accepted by the defence. The NCHR report includes five interviews, presented as representative of systemic abuse. But none of these accounts support the claim of blasphemous entrapment. Instead, they describe the manner in which arrests were carried out—what the interviewees refer to as being “entrapped” during the operation itself. This distinction is not semantic; it is substantive. Law enforcement, by its nature, does not give notice of arrest. Tactical apprehension is standard practice. Crucially, none of the five interviews allege that objectionable content was planted or fabricated. In short, even the report’s strongest anecdotes fail to support its most explosive claims. The endurance of the “blasphemy business group” narrative is not due to documentation, legal rulings or investigative findings. It persists through a different mechanism: the repetition of partial truths, the elevation of unverified anecdotes and the conflation of commentary with fact. This is not how allegations of institutional misconduct should be handled—especially when they implicate legal professionals, state agencies and investigative bodies. If such claims are made without verifiable evidence, they do not expose corruption; they erode public trust and generate confusion. The conversation around Pakistan’s blasphemy laws deserves depth, nuance and intellectual honesty. It demands rigor—especially when lives and reputations are at stake. To do any less is to blur the line between scrutiny and slander and to let myth take the place of fact. —The writer is a practicing lawyer, Polemicist and Researcher, based in Lahore.