ISLAMABAD, Sept 25: Chief Justice of Islamabad High Court Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman on Tuesday directed the station house officer of Ramna police to submit detail reply on a petition filed by the minor Christian girl seeking quashment of the FIR registered against her in the blasphemy case.

Abdul Hameed Rana, the girl’s counsel, told the court that the FIR registered against his client was baseless.

He pointed out that the statement of Hafiz Zubair, one of the prosecution witnesses, made it clear that Khalid Jadoon had included the pages of the holy Quran in the shopping bag in order to make the case strong as he wanted to expel the Christian community from the locality of Mehra Jaffer.

According to him, being a juvenile and mentally weak as per her medical report, the girl’s conviction was unlikely and, therefore, further proceedings in the trial court of the case would be a futile exercise and wastage of time of the court.

The counsel requested the IHC to restrain the trial court from proceeding in the case till the final adjudication of the petition.

PLEA DISMISSED: Meanwhile, the IHC dismissed a petition seeking enhancement of the scope of the blasphemy law to the rest of the world.

When Justice Riaz Ahmed Khan took up the petition for the first time, its mover Tanveer Akhtar Advocate maintained that incidents of blasphemy by citizens of other countries were increasing, hurting the sentiments of millions of Pakistanis.

In order to bring the foreign nationals within the ambit of the law, the existing law should be expanded across the borders, he suggested.

He said the trial of foreign nationals in their own countries was difficult but Pakistan can take up the matter with other countries and in case the country of the blasphemer refused to cooperate, Pakistan should sever ties with that nation.

The federal government may be directed for necessary legislation for expanding the scope of this law, he requested.

The court, however, dismissed the petition, observing that neither it was maintainable nor practical.