Doctor arrested in Pakistan on charge of blasphemy

The doctor had thrown a business card of a pharma representative named Mohd. Faizan in a dustbin.

A doctor in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province was arrested on a charge of blasphemy after he threw the business card of a pharmaceutical representative named Mohammad Faizan into a dustbin.

Faizan visited the doctor,Naushad Walyani,at his clinic in Hyderabad,the second largest city of Sindh,on Thursday.

As Faizan handed Walyani his business card,the doctor threw it into a dustbin and rushed out of his clinic,Faizan claimed. Faizan returned to the clinic at 8 pm with his colleagues Mohammad Waqas and Mohammad Azam,and confronted the doctor.

When asked about his action of throwing the card into the dustbin,Walyani kicked the dustbin and asked Faizan to take back his card. Faizan claimed the doctor’s actions amounted to an act of blasphemy and left the clinic.

A group of pharmaceutical representatives went to the clinic on Saturday and beat up the doctor for allegedly uttering blasphemous remarks.

They then handed Walyani over to police,who booked the doctor under the Blasphemy Act. Walyani rejected the charge of blasphemy while talking to the media.

The doctor was later shifted from the police stationto a more secure facility due to security concerns,officials said.

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Representatives of some religious parties and hardline groups too have complained to the police against the doctor.

The death sentence given to a Christian woman after she was convicted of blasphemy last month has triggered a debate on the need to repeal or amend Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law introduced by late military ruler Zia-ul-Haq in 1980s.

Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti and rights activists have contended that the law is often used to harass and intimidate members of minority communities.