Hindu teacher sentenced to life imprisonment for blasphemy

 Ghotki: Hindu teacher sentenced to life imprisonment for blasphemy

Nautan Lal, accused of blasphemy in Ghotki, was sentenced to life imprisonment and fined by a sessions court.

Additional Sessions Judge Mumtaz Ali Solangi delivered a safe verdict on Tuesday. A fine of Rs 50,000 was also imposed on the culprit.

Nautan Lal has been in jail since 2019. The court ruled in the case within two years.

The court ruled that Nautan Lal was convicted under section 265H of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Under this section, if the accused admits the charges against him, the court can punish him according to the law. However, if the accused does not admit the charges against him, the court will decide in the light of the evidence.

In this case, Nautan Lal's bail application was rejected twice.

Case background

On September 14, 2019, a video went viral on social media in which an intermediate student claimed that Sindh Public School owner Nautan Lal had committed indecency.

The school teachers said that Newton owns the school but he himself used to teach physics at Government Degree College Ghotki and on that day he had just walked around the school. Newton's 2 youngest children were studying in the same school while 2 older children were studying in Karachi.

After the video went viral, Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat leader and head of a madrassa, Mufti Abdul Karim Saeedi, announced that he had filed a defamation suit against Sindh Public School owner Nautan Lal under Section 295C of the Pakistan Penal Code. If found guilty under Section 295C, he could be sentenced to death and fined.

Police assured Mufti Abdul Karim Saeedi that they would arrest Nautan Lal by 5 pm the next day (September 15), but despite the registration of the case and assurance of arrest of the accused by the police, violent incidents broke out in Ghotki that night. ۔

Teachers said that on the morning of September 15, a mob broke into the Sindh Public School. The mob started vandalizing and setting fire to the contents of the building.

One teacher said that September 15 was a Sunday but the exams were to start a few days later and the male teachers had come to the school to prepare for it. The teachers escaped during the attack and the school was closed for 10 days.

On the other hand, as soon as the news spread in the city, masked men attacked Sachu Satram Dham Temple. He entered the temple and damaged the idols and demolished the wall.

Kailash Kapoor, a temple volunteer, was present at the temple along with three others. "I saw about 50 people approaching the temple with sticks and iron bars," he said. We didn't know what to do, so we hid in a corner of the temple.

Jai Kumar, the caretaker of the affected temple, termed the attack as a conspiracy to pit Muslims and Hindus against each other.

According to Jay Kumar, about 500 Muslims reached the temple after the attack and guarded the temple all night.