Blasphemy accused found dead in Sialkot Jail

SIALKOT - Fanish Maseeh alias Robert (19), the main accused in the Holy Quran blasphemy case, was found dead mysteriously in Sialkot district jail on Tuesday morning.
The jail officials said that the accused strung himself up on a six-feet high hook of a door using his 'ozaarband in Block No 4 of Sialkot district jail during Sehri times.
Fanish was remanded to 14-day judicial custody by a court in Sialkot on Monday after a case was registered against him by Sambrial police under sections 295-B and 354 PPC on September 11, 2009.
According to the FIR, Fanish desecrated the Holy Quran as he snatched one of its 'Para from a Muslim girl, Hina (15), who was going back to her home after attending a Quran class at a mosque in village Jaithikey-Sambrial near Sialkot. The accused threw the copy of the holy book into a drain. This incident resulted into the torching of a Catholic Church by enraged mob and ensuing religious strife.
On Saturday, Sambrial police arrested Fanish and produced him before a local court in Sialkot. The court sent him to Sialkot district jail on 14-day judicial remand.
Local Christians alleged that Fanish was tortured to death by the jail officials who later hanged his body to make it a suicide incident.
They posed a question that how an 'ozaarband could lift a man weighing 60-70kgs and how could a man hang himself with a six-foot high hook of a door?
The deceaseds family told the newsmen that his ribs were found fractured and other body parts also bore signs of severe torture. They took the body to their native village.
Fanishs father Riasat Maseeh demanded of the government to initiate a judicial inquiry into the killing.
Provincial Minister Kamran Michael, DIG (Prisons) Punjab Mirza Shahid Saleem Baig, local PML-Nawaz MPAs Ch Jamil Ashraf Baryar, Mrs Naseem Akhtar Khawaja and Mehmood Sarwar Cheema and Sialkot DPO Waqar Ahmad Chohan rushed to the spot to look into the incident.
They appealed to the protesting Christians to remain peaceful and pledged to bring the culprit to task.
Talking to the newsmen at Sialkot district jail after examining the body, a local Christian leader Dr David Sohail (Director Memorial Christian Hospital Sialkot) said: There is strong circumstantial proof that the death has not occurred due to hanging.
A local doctor, Mian Muhammad Azhar of Govt Allama Iqbal memorial DHQ Hospital Sialkot, also examined the body and took 18 X-rays of the body but avoided talking to the newsmen in this regard.