The moment can be seen in gruesome images A violent mob threatens to behead a terrified woman after accusing her of wearing a dress with ‘blasphemous’ writing on it in Pakistan.
Hundreds of angry men swarmed a restaurant in the eastern city of Lahore after mistaking Arabic text meaning “sweet” on a customer’s dress for Quranic verses.
The woman is seen cowering in fear as the men begin to threaten her, telling her to take off her clothes, before the establishment is closed and police officers try to calm the baying crowd.
A brave female officer tries to reason with the men, asking them to “have faith in the police” and not take the law into their own hands, even as the crowd swells and begins chanting a slogan that means “there is only one punishment for those who blaspheme the Prophet – beheading’.
The police officer, identified as Assistant Superintendent Syeda Shehrbano Naqvi, then enters the restaurant and manages to take away the woman, who is now dressed in black, and protect her from the men gathered outside.
The woman is seen cowering in fear as the men begin threatening her and telling her to take off her clothes
A brave female officer tries to ‘negotiate’ as the crowd swells and starts chanting a slogan that means ‘there is only one punishment for those who blaspheme the Prophet: beheading’
A brave female officer tries to reason with the men, asking them to ‘have faith in the police’ and not take the law into their own hands
A brave female police officer guides the woman, who is dressed in a black dress, through the barking crowd
“No one actually knew what the shirt said,” the officer told police BBC. “The biggest achievement was trying to get that woman out of the area to make sure she’s safe.”
A second video shows the woman in custody, flanked by police and Muslim clerics who confirmed that her dress was not printed with Quranic verses and that she was innocent.
Her face is covered and she looks apologetically at the camera with her hands folded and says she is sorry and that she did not mean to offend anyone.
Struggling to hold back tears, she adds that she “didn’t realize that people would misinterpret the Arabic text as something from the Quran” and that she would “never wear a dress like that again,” while the cleric stands next to her. ask her what to say.
“The woman was shopping when a group of men noticed her dress with Arabic text on it and demanded that she take it off as they thought it was blasphemy,” said ASP Shehrbano.
The crowd included supporters of the far-right Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party, whose members regularly call for the beheading of blasphemers.
Police said they were called to the scene around 1 p.m. on Sunday and about 300 people had gathered at the restaurant by the time they arrived.
The dress in question was a design using the Arabic word ‘halwa’ meaning sweet, which has no religious significance, and was sold by a boutique from Saudi Arabia.
The dress in question was a design using the Arabic word ‘halwa’ meaning sweet, which has no religious significance, and was sold by a boutique in Saudi Arabia
Struggling to hold back tears, she adds that she “didn’t realize that people would misunderstand the Arabic text as something from the Quran.”
In a second video, the woman is seen in custody, flanked by police and Muslim clerics who confirmed her dress was not printed with Quranic verses.
Pakistan’s Punjab Police praised the woman police officer’s efforts to stop the mafia and said they had nominated her for a gallantry award, while sharing the video on Twitter.
“If I hadn’t shouted and convinced the crowd that we were going to do something about it, it would have gotten worse… Thank God,” she said.
ASP Shehrbano said authorities have seen a “mushroom of incidents” like Sunday’s, the BBC reports.
Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan, but there have been numerous cases of alleged perpetrators being lynched before their cases even got to court.
At least 85 people have been murdered over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to local media and researchers.