ISLAMABAD: A day after the National Assembly resolved to insert safeguards into the blasphemy law, the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) reneged on their commitment.

On Tuesday, the lower house had unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the brutal murder of Abdul Wali Khan University student Mashal Khan on fabricated charges of blasphemy.

On that day, JI’s Sher Akbar Khan and JUI-F’s Naeema Kishwer Khan had spoken in favour of the resolution, even though the latter had not signed it. But on Wednesday, JI parliamentary leader Sahibzada Tariqullah came out in opposition to the proposal, saying that his party would not support any changes to the blasphemy law.

“The law is the law; whosoever forms a lynch mob should be acted against. But the blasphemy law does not call on people to dispense mob justice, there is nothing wrong with it,” he declared.

“The problems we are facing are due to the lack of proper enforcement of these laws,” he insisted, adding that if people were punished under the blasphemy law, there would be no room for mob justice.

Ms Khan also seemed to have a change of heart, saying that there was nothing in the blasphemy law that made people take the law into their own hands and called for its proper implementation.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2017