Ambulance driver Chand Shamaun, who was arrested in June in Pakistan’s Punjab Province and charged with insulting Islam, was released on bail Oct. 23 after a court noted discrepancies in the police case against him.

Shamaun’s lawyer, Javed Sahotra, told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News that the initial police report was registered after a 12-hour delay. “Moreover, the police complainant was not even present on the scene of the alleged occurrence. There was also no independent witness; the one witness listed by the police was in fact a police informer and is often used as a complainant or witness in false cases. Most importantly, the police did not recover any evidence that directly incriminated Shamaun.”

Christians living in the area said in June that Shamaun’s arrest grew out of a dispute he had with his siblings over his share in their ancestral house and that police did not arrive on the scene until the following morning.

“The police turned a family dispute into a religious incident when in fact no blasphemy had been committed,” said Abraham Daniel, the Baptist bishop in the neighboring district of Sahiwal.

“False blasphemy allegations and cases have become a norm here,” Daniel said. “The situation has reached the point where entire neighborhoods are abandoned merely on the basis of accusation. The case against Chand is a cause of concern because the complainant is not a private individual but a police officer who apparently concocted the incident.”

Sahotra said Shamaun is now staying with his family at a safe house for protection.

Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Committee noted that Pakistani authorities have failed to curb a sharp increase in violence, often related to blasphemy accusations. The committee expressed concern about killings, lynchings, mob violence, forced conversions and the desecration of places of worship.

Photo at top: Pakistani Christians protest in London, England, against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws in October 2012.

Photo: Nelson Pereira / Alamy Stock Photo