Lahore, Nov 27 (ANI): The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) has warned the Pakistan government of protests and "anarchy in the country", if it decided to pardon Aasia Bibi, the Pakistani-Christian woman sentenced to death on charges of blasphemy.
Demonstrators marched onto the streets in Lahore after the most influential Sunni alliance in the country urged the government not to grant clemency to the mother-of-five, the Daily Times reported.
A crowd of several hundred called for "jihad", and pledged to sacrifice their lives to protect the honour of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), in a rally organised by a subsidiary of banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which the United Nations has blacklisted as a terrorist organisation.
"We will hold nationwide protests if the government pardons the Christian woman," the subsidiary's chief coordinator, Qari Yaqub, told the participants.
"The pardon would lead to anarchy in the country," said the head of the Sunni Ittehad Council, Sahibzada Fazal Kareem, adding, "Our stand is very clear that this punishment cannot be waived."
Politicians and conservative clerics have been at loggerheads over whether Zardari should pardon Aasia, who was sentenced to death after a district judge found her guilty of having stated that insects had feasted upon the prophet Muhammad's ear prior to his death and that he married his first wife for wealth, and that the Quran was written by man and not God. Aasia denied the accusations, claiming ignorance of Islamic knowledge. (ANI)
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