Loved ones of the Christian couple from Pakistan who were brutally killed by burning by a Muslim mob over false accusations of blasphemy, have finally attained justice two years after the heinous crime was committed.
According to a report by The Daily Mail, five individuals who were involved in the attack and killing of Christian man Shahzad Masih and his pregnant wife Shama Bibi have been sentenced to death by hanging by a court in the eastern city of Lahore.
Eight other people who were also part of the mob that killed the Christian couple were sentenced to two years in prison.
"The five people awarded the death sentence were involved in dragging, beating and burning the couple while the other eight played a supportive role, according to the judgement," Riaz Anjum, a lawyer representing the couple's family, said.
It can be recalled that the Christian couple were dragged and tossed inside a kiln after they were falsely accused of tossing pages of Islam's holy book, the Quran, into a garbage heap which they allegedly burned afterwards. Only the charred bones of the couple were recovered after the incident.
Critics alleged that the couple, who could not even read or write, committed blasphemy, which is punishable by death in the Muslim-dominated nation.
As it turned out, the court found out that the Christian couple only disposed pages from a book with inscriptions in different languages made by Shahzad's father before the Muslim mob, who wrongly thought they were pages from the Quran, attacked them.
Although 13 people who took part in this attack have been punished, some 90 others were acquitted by the local court.
Among those cleared by the court for any wrongdoing was Masih's employer, who had been accused of trying to prevent the Christian couple from leaving their worksite due to their unpaid debt.
