Dhaka: At least 20 Bangladeshis were killed on Monday in clashes between police and hardline Islamists demanding religious reforms, as violence spread beyond the capital Dhaka to other parts of the country.
The clashes began on Sunday after 200,000 Islamist supporters marched in Dhaka to press demands critics said would amount to the "Talibanisation" of a country that maintains secularism as state policy, but they were met by lines of police firing teargas and rubber bullets.
On Monday, hundreds of protesters, many wearing white Muslim skull caps and throwing stones, re-grouped and police fired teargas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse them.
Protesters set fire to vehicles, including two police cars, and stormed a police post on the outskirts of the capital, police said....
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06:53 AM, May 07, 2013
Dhaka: Bangladesh's police and paramilitary troops on Sunday night dispersed a huge demonstration by thousands of Islamist protesters after violent clashes in Dhaka left seven people dead and scores injured. "The Motijheel is now under our control...Hefazat-e-Islami has quit the area," a police spokesman told newsmen after a combined force of some 10,000 riot police, elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) troops carried out...
09:24 AM, May 06, 2013
Dhaka: Members of a hardline Muslim group in Bangladesh on Saturday held rally across Dhaka demanding enactment of anti-blasphemy laws to punish people who insult Islam. The massive rally in Dhaka took place amid heightened security. The protestors targeted bloggers who have held street protests demanding execution for convicted war criminals. In a separate incident, a ruling party supporter has been killed and 15 others injured in the clashes between...
05:17 PM, Apr 07, 2013
150 people have been arrested in Lahore after a mob of nearly 2000 people attacked Christian families. The mob had torched over 150 homes of the minority Christian community in search of a man who had allegedly committed blasphemy. ...
08:27 PM, Mar 11, 2013
Hundreds of Christians clashed with police across Pakistan on Sunday, a day after a Muslim mob burned dozens of homes owned by members of the minority religious group in retaliation for alleged insults against Islam's Prophet Muhammad. ...
04:16 AM, Mar 11, 2013
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has taken a serious note of attacks on the houses of Christians in Lahore and sought a report from the authorities over the incident, Xinhua reported. ...
06:38 AM, Mar 10, 2013
A mob went on the rampage in a Christian-dominated neighbourhood in this eastern Pakistani city on Saturday following reports that a Christian man had committed blasphemy, burning scores of houses and driving out about 150 families. The trouble began, when over 2,000 enraged Muslims gathered around Joseph Colony at Noor Road and pelted stones at the homes of 150 Christian families. The mob was led by one Shafiq Ahmed, who...
09:45 PM, Mar 09, 2013
At least four people were killed and over 200 injured in Bangladesh on Friday as hundreds of Islamists clashed with police in Dhaka and other major cities demanding execution of "atheist bloggers" they accused of blasphemy. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas canisters to disperse Islamists backed by Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party whose leaders are facing trial in special tribunals for "crimes against humanity" during the 1971 liberation war against...
10:50 PM, Feb 22, 2013
A case of blasphemy has been registered against Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman over her remarks on a TV show, a charge that carries the death penalty. ...
04:03 AM, Feb 22, 2013
The Supreme Court on Thursday admitted a businessman's petition seeking action against Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, for allegedly committing blasphemy over two years ago. ...
12:26 AM, Jan 18, 2013
A mob broke into a Pakistani police station and burnt a man accused of desecrating the Quran alive, police said Saturday, in the latest violence focusing attention on the country's blasphemy laws. The man was a traveller and had spent Thursday night at the mosque, said Maulvi Memon, the imam in the southern village of Seeta in Sindh province. ...
02:49 PM, Dec 22, 2012
A Pakistani man, arrested on charges of blasphemy, has died in police custody with his relatives alleging that he was "tortured to death". Police denied the allegations of torture and said Nadeem Yousuf, the deceased, was a drug addict and might have died due to his dependence on narcotics. ...
09:20 PM, Dec 03, 2012
Islamabad: A Pakistani court dismissed on Tuesday a blasphemy case against a Christian girl which had drawn international condemnation and concern about the rights of religious minorities in the predominantly Muslim country. Rimsha Masih, believed to be no older than 14, was charged with burning pages of the Quran in August but was granted bail in September after a cleric was detained on suspicion of planting evidence to stir up...
01:29 PM, Nov 20, 2012
Lahore: A large number of people, including activists of religious parties, ransacked and set on fire a girls' school in Lahore and clashed with police following reports that a question paper for a test had contained blasphemous references to the Prophet, police said on Thursday. Activists of groups like the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Islami Jamiat Talba, the students' wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, and parents of some students were among those who...
12:38 PM, Nov 01, 2012
Islamabad: A Pakistani cleric who falsely accused a minor Christian girl of blasphemy by framing evidence against her was freed from jail today after he was granted bail by a court in the federal capital. Khalid Chishti was detained on September 1 on a charge of blasphemy for desecrating the Quran and planting evidence that was used against the girl Rimsha Masih. He was arrested after his deputy Maulvi Zubair...
02:19 AM, Oct 13, 2012
Islamabad: The three men who had accused a cleric of tampering evidence to implicate young Christian girl Rimsha Masih in a blasphemy case on Monday withdrew their statement, claiming they were tortured by police to testify against the imam. The three witnesses, who had earlier recorded statements against cleric Khalid Chishti, submitted a fresh statement in the court of a district and sessions judge in Islamabad that said police had...
04:00 PM, Oct 01, 2012
A 14-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan who was charged with blasphemy is expected to be declared innocent by a juvenile court on Monday. Police say that Rimsha Masih was not only innocent but that she was framed by a Muslim cleric in her home town. Masih reportedly suffers from Down Syndrome. The cleric said that he saw her tearing down the Quran's pages. ...
10:01 AM, Oct 01, 2012
Islamabad: A group of Muslim men who damaged a temple and attacked homes of Hindus during a recent protest in Karachi against an anti-Islam film have been charged under Pakistan's harsh blasphemy law, a media report said on Sunday. Nine men, including Maulvi Habibur Rehman and his accomplices, have been named in the police complaint regarding the ransacking of the Sri Krishna Bhagwan Mandir in Gulshan-e-Maymar area of Karachi. The...
01:56 PM, Sep 30, 2012
Islamabad: A Pakistani court on Monday ordered the police to transfer the case of young Christian girl Rimsha Masih, accused of blasphemy, to a juvenile court as an official medical board had concluded that her age is 14 years. District and Sessions Judge Jawad Abbas Hassan directed police to submit a separate challan or chargesheet against Rimsha to the juvenile court. He said the court had received the medical board's...
03:39 AM, Sep 25, 2012
Islamabad: Investigations into the blasphemy case involving a minor Christian girl in Pakistan have found cleric Khalid Jadoon guilty while exonerating the teenaged girl, Dawn newspaper reported. Rimsah Masih, the minor Christian girl, faced a life sentence for allegedly burning the Holy Quran's pages. But she was later released on bail. Jadoon has been taken into judicial custody as he is "accused of inserting pages of the Quran into the...
01:22 AM, Sep 24, 2012
