GHOTKI: A district and sessions court in Ghotki has sentenced a Hindu teacher, Nautan Lal, to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs50,000 in a blasphemy case.
Additional Sessions Judge Mumtaz Ali Solangi announced the verdict on Tuesday, almost two years after the case was filed. The accused has been in jail since 2019 as an undertrial prisoner.
According to the court’s verdict, Lal was convicted under Section 265-H of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which states: if the accused admits that he has been previously convicted as alleged in the charge, the court may pass a sentence upon him according to law, and if the accused does not admit that he has been previously convicted as alleged in the charge, the court may take evidence in respect of the alleged previous conviction, and shall record a finding thereon, and then pass sentence upon him according to law.
A case against Nautan Lal was also registered under Section 295-C (use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet (PBUH)) of the Pakistan Penal Code. He has been sent back to Central Prison in Sukkur.
On September 14, 2019, a video was shared on social media in which a teenager, a first-year Intermediate student, claimed that the owner of Ghotki’s Sindh Public Higher Secondary School had blasphemed himself.
According to teachers, however, Nautan Lal was just visiting that day. He doesn’t actually teach at his school. He is a physics teacher at Government Degree College Ghotki.
Soon after the incident, head of a madrassa, Mufti Adul Karim Sayeedi of Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, registered a blasphemy case against the school owner. Violence broke out in the district the night the case was registered.
As the news spread, masked men attacked the Sacho Satram Dham Temple in Ghotki. They ransacked the temple, damaged its idols and battered its blue and green walls.
