Lahore High Court adjourns Junaid Hafeez blasphemy appeal

The Lahore High Court on Tuesday sought the prosecution's response on whether evidence supported the charges that led to a death sentence for Junaid Hafeez, a former Bahauddin Zakariya University lecturer convicted in a blasphemy case, Independent Urdu reported. A two-judge bench consisting of Justice Sadiq Mahmood Khurram and Justice Jawad Zafar adjourned the hearing without setting a next date.

During the hearing of Hafeez's appeal, filed in 2020, the court asked the prosecution whether there was evidence to confirm the allegations on which the trial court had based the conviction. A state counsel told the bench that complete details would be presented and that time was needed. Hafeez's lawyer Asad Jamal said the court had sought answers from the prosecution to questions raised in the appeal. He told Independent Urdu that the next hearing date had not been fixed but would be finalised within a day or two.

Hafeez, who was born in Rajanpur district of south Punjab, worked as a visiting lecturer in the English department at Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan and studied in the United States on a Fulbright scholarship. Police registered a case against him in 2013 over allegations of blasphemous remarks on social media, and he was arrested after a group of university students protested. For security reasons, the trial was held inside Multan Central Jail.

Hafeez's lawyer and human rights activist Rashid Rehman was shot dead in his Multan office in May 2014. In December 2019, Additional District and Sessions Judge Kashif Qayyum convicted Hafeez under sections 295-A, 295-B and 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, sentencing him to death, life imprisonment, 10 years in prison and a fine of Rs500,000. His father filed an appeal in the Lahore High Court in 2020. The court has not set a date for the next hearing.