LAHORE, June 11: The Church of Pakistan’s Women Desk has expressed its serious concern over increase in abuse of blasphemy laws manifested in the raise in registration of cases during the last two months.

Desk secretary Ayra Inderyas said in a statement that the laws had become a tool of repression for victimising the minorities and people belonging to lower strata of society. Besides this, there were several documented incidents where worship places of minorities were set on fire and destroyed after blasphemy allegations.

Recent incidents such as distribution of threatening letters to Christians of Charsadda warning them to change their religion, bomb explosions smashing music and video shops in Mardan and Charsadda and blasphemy allegations against Christian nurses of Pakistan Institute of Medical Science, Islamabad were adding more to an environment of insecurity against minorities.

She said the government should take notice of increase in misuse of the laws and take concrete measure to prevent innocent people being victimised.