After spending more than three weeks in solitary confinement in Adiyala jail in Pakistan, the 11-year-old Christian girl, who was said to be suffering from Down Sydrome and charged with blasphemy, was released on Sept. 8 She was escorted out of the jail under heavy guard and flown to an undisclosed location. She was freed after a witness testified in court that the imam who initiated the blasphemy case tampered with the evidence to pin down the girl. Despite this, threat to the girl's life persists, not only from religious extremists but also from a lawyer who said that if she were not punished under the infamous blasphemy law “there are several Qadris in the country to do justice to her” — referring to Mumtaz Qadri who early last year gunned down Punjab Governor Salman Taseer for criticizing the blasphemy law. I leave the legal arguments to the police investigators and the lawyers. But I want to pose some questions to millions of Pakistanis who have 11-year-old daughters, who may or may not be suffering from some mental illness: Can you imagine your daughter sitting in a solitary-confinement cell or in a room guarded by armed policemen or gunned down while walking or playing with her friends on the street? Where is the issue now? Has this 11-year-old child endangered our faith or are we too weak that we have to resort to a bloodbath every now and then to strengthen our faith?
