LAHORE, Feb 4: Controversy surrounds the Chhanga Manga blasphemy case as the family of the accused alleges police partiality.

The case involves Martha, a Christian woman, who has been booked under section 295-C of the Constitution. The law carries a maximum penalty of death.

According to police, this case has been registered “on the directions” of an SP. It took the police just two days to investigate the matter after the registration of the case, sending the challan for trial. The display of haste has given Martha’s relatives a cause to raise fingers at the investigators.

Right now Martha is in Kasur jail and her family, including her husband and six young children, have taken refuge many kilometers away from home, which they had to abandon during the early hours of January 23 - they say to save their lives.

Police had whisked away Martha, both sides agree, to save her life from the enraged residents of Kot Nanak Singh, Chhanga Manga. But her family says that afterwards she has not been given a chance to plead her case.

During a visit to Chhanga Manga on Saturday, this reporter met Martha’s family, the police concerned, the complainant and the two witnesses to her alleged blasphemous conduct. It appeared that at the time Martha was alleged to have committed the blasphemy, she was not accompanied by anyone who could testify her innocence. She was rounded up and sent to jail without being given a proper hearing.

Between the alleged incident and her arrest, Martha remained with her family for several hours. What she may have told her family in these hours, the police have not made an effort to find out as no member of her family has been contacted by the investigators. Not only that, the investigation of the case has been completed without contacting the complainant and the two witnesses. And the villagers do not know as to how police have counter-checked the allegations made against Martha.

According to Martha’s husband, Boota Masih, a construction labourer, he had gone to Lahore on the morning of Jan 22 to buy bricks. He returned home in the evening and no one told him that anything wrong had happened. He went to sleep along with his family, but at around 8pm someone knocked at the door to his house.

Boota said when he came out there were around eight villagers outside his house. One of them told him that his wife had committed blasphemy. Upon this he replied that his wife could not do any such thing and if at all she had quarrelled with anyone, she should be pardoned.

Boota said the visitors went away but after around 30 minutes he heard an announcement from a nearby mosque, asking people to gather there. Sensing danger his family fled climbing the rear wall of the house as there was a group of men standing vigil at its main gate.

He said the family went to his father’s house some distance away, but they were chased by a large number of villagers. Ultimately, they sneaked into the adjacent house of Ismail Patwari who locked them inside to protect them from the villagers. Finally, a relative of the patwari called the police who took Martha into their custody and shifted her to the Changa Manga police station.

Boota said Martha told him that she had gone to the village mosque to collect rent on the wooden planks which she rented out to one Baba Rafique. Rafique refused to pay the rent and asked her to take away her material, according to Boota.

At this point, the wife of an eyewitness, Muhammad Ramazan, present in his retail shop, asked Martha not to enter the mosque. In response Martha asked a young boy to bring out the planks lying inside the mosque. She carried two planks to her residence close by and came back to collect more. On her return, she found that the planks had been thrown into the mosque again by Ramazan’s wife, Boota claimed.

“This led to a quarrel between the two women. But my wife soon returned home and spent the day without any trouble. In the meantime, the wife of the shopkeeper concocted the story to teach Martha a lesson,” he said.

He also claimed that six month back Martha had showed her intention to buy wheat from the shopkeeper’s wife, but bought it from someone else because of lower rates. “This annoyed the shopkeeper’s wife who has now implicated Martha in a false case,” he said.

Boota said when police registered the case against Martha she was alone. She denied the charge at the residence of the patwari when the police were taking her away.

He said the incident had ruined his family, and he did not think he and his family were now secure in the village even if his wife was acquitted. “I am a poor man and surviving because of the kindness of those who have given me refuge,” he said urging the government to give protection to his children and justice to her wife.

Kasur minority councillor Zulfikar Gill said that as soon as he was informed of the incident, he contacted the Changa Manga SHO by telephone. The officer responded that Martha had been sent to jail after the registration of a case carrying a minor offence. But, he said, he came to know the next morning she had been implicated in the serious offence of blasphemy.

Gill said he met Martha in jail on January 24 along with local MPA Pervaiz Rafiq and advocate Azra Shujaat, and she said that before registering the case the police officer had only once asked her whether she had committed the blasphemy. She had denied the charge.

Gill and Boota said the police did not contact them before or after registering the case against Martha. “I am hiding to protect my life and that of my children. I don’t know as to how I can seek justice for my wife,” Boota said.

A number of villagers gathered around this reporter during the visit to Kot Nanak Singh and insisted that Martha had committed blasphemy. They said nine other Christian families were still peacefully living in the village because the majority Muslim population was not against them.

Haji Muhammad Rafiq alias Baba Rafiq, over 70, is the man who alleged that Martha had committed the blasphemy while addressing him. But strangely his name has not been mentioned in the FIR as a witness.

“We have kept him away (from the case) because he is too old to brave the hardships of going to the police station and the court,” Muhammad Bilal, a villager said. He said the angry villagers could have taken Martha to task had the police not intervened.

Haji Rafiq said he was sitting on the platform of a shop under the mosque when Martha came and committed the blasphemy. He said he admonished Martha and asked some women there to shoo her away.

Muhammad Ramazan, the witness in the FIR, said he was present in his shop when he heard Martha committing the blasphemy. The other witness mentioned in the FIR, Muhammad Aslam, claimed to have heard the blasphemous remarks as he came there to buy grocery.

Muhammad Dilbar, who is the complainant and a Wapda employee, said he came to know about the incident when he went to the mosque for Isha prayers on the evening of January 22 after his return from work.

He said upon learning about the incident he and some others went to Martha’s house to confirm the accusation. “When I talked to her husband Boota Masih, he sought pardon for her,” he said, adding that then they returned “as the allegation had been confirmed.”

When asked as to why the villagers got enraged after nearly 12 hours of the incident, the witnesses said they did not take action against her ‘then and there’ because she was a woman.

Muhammad Ramazan denied that his wife had an old score to settle with Martha. The wheat story was a lie, he said, adding he was ready to swear by the Holy Quran that Martha had committed blasphemy.

All the villagers who talked to this reporter including the witnesses said the police did not contact them after the registration of the case on January 24 for investigations.