ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Saturday acquitted Khalid Jadoon, a prayer leader of a mosque and main accused in Rimsha Masih case, after six of eight eyewitnesses changed their statements in the court saying they made different statements earlier due to various pressures.
The cleric was accused of adding pages from the Holy Quran to ashes seized from 14-year-old Rimsha Masih to implicate her and make the case stronger.
Three witnesses who had testified against the cleric had later backtracked from their statements saying that the police had forced them to testify on October 10, 2012.
Rimsha Masih was arrested under the blasphemy laws from the outskirts of Islamabad on August 16, 2012 after a mob of angry residents gathered at the Ramna Police Station and accused her of burning pages of the Holy Quran.
The charges against Rimsha led to the evacuation of dozens of Christian families from the neighbourhood after cleric Khalid Jadoon allegedly issued a decree on his mosque’s loudspeaker to burn Christians of the Mehrabadi village alive.
