Peshawar man claiming apostasy awarded death penalty

[Hassaan HS]

An additional district and sessions court of Peshawar has awarded death sentence and Rs0.1 million fine to a man who claimed apostasy

Muhammad Tahir Aurangzeb awarded the punishment to Bashir Mastan under Section 295-C/298.

According to the prosecution, Mastan had made the claim in the jurisdiction of Inqilab police station of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's (K-P) provincial metropolis.

The fake apostle was arrested on the said charges on September 7, 2020 and was subsequently tried for the same.

In late September, a district and sessions court in Lahore awarded death sentence to a female principal of a school for claiming prophethood.The prosecution successfully proved the case against the convict, Salma Tanveer while the defendants failed to establish that the accused was not mentally stable when she had committed the offence.

Salma, on September 3, 2013 had published and distributed a pamphlet in the area near her residence in Lahore in which she denied the finality of the prophethood.

It also contained derogatory words towards the sacred name of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), claiming her own prophethood and calling herself Rehmatul Alamin (mercy for all the worlds).

The area residents had lodged an FIR against the accused after which local police arrested the school principal. Nishtar Colony police had also found her guilty during the investigation.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2335307/peshawar-man-claiming-apostasy-awarded-death-penalty

 

[gazza619]

What is happening to our society?

Why such harsh punishments?

 

[street cricketer]

Exhibit no.5345 on why religion was the worst thing that happened to the subcontinent. Religion is detrimental to the progress of the human civilization and the level of progress in a society is inversely proportional to the level of religiosity in that society. The fact that most of the progressive countries in the world are among the least religious societies on earth and most of the least progressive countries happen to be the most religious societies in the world is no coincidence.

I'm no neo atheist who wants the entire world to turn atheist. I have no objection to people having faith in God and if a young teenager who suffers from a terminal illness resorts to faith in God for inner peace, who am I to lecture him that it's wrong. But the better term for that is "spirituality", having something to give a direction and peace to your life based on an inner connection with a superior power is spirituality. But when you use that concept to affect the life of another person who may be having his own way of connecting with the superior being, it ceases to being spiritual and becomes political. Religion is a political construct with a few spiritual concepts thrown in (that are common in most religions anyway). Religion can be best defined as a political ideology masquerading as a spiritual ideology. It is based on exclusivity, discrimination and alienation, and any society that's based on such an ideology is bound to fail more often than not.