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Referring to the recent case where an 11-year-old mentally challenged Christian girl was arrested on blasphemy charges, an editorial in a Pakistani daily has said that the blasphemy law has become a death warrant at the hands of mob vigilantism, and added that safeguards against false and irrational accusation of blasphemy are the urgent need of the hour. According to news reports, the child, Rifta Masih, was caught tearing and dumping a few pages of Quranic text while playing outside her home in Islamabad . The act enraged Muslims in the neighbourhood who immediately tried to intimidate and pressurise the police to arrest the girl and her mother. What this mob did not take into account is that the girl is afflicted with Down syndrome and that without having the ability to think, how could she know that she was soiling something holy and revered? - said the editorial in the Daily Times. This is not the only case of so-called blasphemy followed blindly and taken up as a matter of life and death. Even those who dared speak against the abuse of this law had to pay with their lives like the late Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer and Federal Minister of Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, it added. The latest case shows the depth of the abyss into which people have fallen in Pakistan . If only these people could know what respect for our Prophet and the Quran means, they would perhaps find little time left from soul searching to throw stones at others, it said. Depreciating Islam to killing, maiming, intimidating people is one of the biggest disservices these custodians of religion are doing to their faith, more so when the target is minorities. The blasphemy law needs thorough revision and redefinition, the editorial further said. The editorial concluded by saying, that the blasphemy law has been made a tool in the hands of people who use it for their personal interests as and when they like. The most shocking part of the Rifta Masih case has been the role of the police who gave in to the pressure of a mob.

Pak's blasphemy law has become death warrant: Paper