A Pakistani court on Saturday, June 10, handed down the death sentence to a man after finding him guilty of blasphemy. This is the first time a man in Pakistan has been awarded the maximum punishment for the country's strict blasphemy laws, which are often known to be misused.

Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) judge Shabir Ahmed handed down the sentence to the 30-year-old accused who had been arrested in 2016 by the provincial Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) from Bahawalpur in the Punjab province of Pakistan, according to government prosecutor Shafiq Qureshi.

The convict belongs to the Shia community, and had been accused of posting on Facebook "derogatory content about prominent Sunni religious figures and the Holy Prophet Muhammad" and his wives, according to a Dawn report.

The report went on to add that after the convict was arrested, "a case was registered against him on behalf of the state at CTD Multan police station under Section 295-C (use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet) and Sections 9 and 11w of the Anti-Terrorism Act (which deal with whipping up sectarian hatred)."

Blasphemy laws are quite strict in Pakistan, and the mere act has been known to earn the accused strict condemnation — and often physical violence — from the masses, besides the legal proceedings that entail it. It has also been known to be misused by certain people against minorities.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority had last month extended the law's strict ambit to social media, saying in an Urdu-language statement: "Uploading and sharing of blasphemous content on the internet is a punishable offence under the law. Such content should be reported on info@pta.gov.pk for legal action."

There have been calls in recent times to amend the blasphemy laws. These calls received impetus in April this year following the lynching of 23-year-old Mashal Khan — a student of the Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan — by a mob that accused him of posting blasphemous content on social media.

A joint investigation team (JIT) set up to probe the incident, and according to another Dawn report, it found "no proof" that Khan had committed blasphemy. Instead, the report said the JIT had found out that "a group in the university incited a mob against the Mardan university student on pretext of blasphemy," and it was this mob that ended up killing him.