In the land that often boasts of its justice system and religious tolerance, a teenage boy rots behind bars — his only crime: being a Christian in Pakistan.
Akash Karamat, barely 18 years old, has spent the last 18 months imprisoned under the country’s notorious and misused blasphemy laws. Even after being granted bail in all three trumped-up cases against him, the trial court in Sargodha is blatantly refusing to release him. Why? Because in Pakistan, Christian lives, especially those accused of blasphemy, are not measured by justice — they are shackled by fear, bigotry, and the twisted whims of the powerful.
The Lahore High Court, on three separate occasions — December 18, February 13, and February 19 — ordered bail for Akash. But instead of upholding the rule of law, Additional Sessions Judge Naveed Khaliq continues to delay the written order needed for his release. His cruel silence, cloaked in bureaucratic excuses, is prolonging the suffering of a boy who should never have been arrested in the first place.
This is not a judicial error. This is deliberate oppression.
Akash’s father, Karamat Masih, a poor tailor turned laborer, has moved heaven and earth to meet the bail conditions — collecting the required 300,000 Pakistani Rupees through sheer desperation. With no property to offer as security, cash was his only option. And still, the judge refused. He claimed that without guarantors, Akash might flee — a baseless, discriminatory presumption steeped in bias against Christians.
Masih, who suffers from a serious kidney condition requiring surgery, continues to appear in court every single day, even in pain, begging for his son’s freedom. He and his wife, broken by grief and poverty, waited over four hours recently just to be dismissed again. Their only child, falsely accused and locked away, has become a pawn in Pakistan’s cruel game of appeasing radical Islamists.
Let us be clear: Akash’s arrest came in the wake of the horrific Jaranwala riots, where frenzied mobs, incited by false accusations, burned down churches and Christian homes. Rather than arresting the rioters, Pakistan chose to target more Christians — victims turned into suspects. Akash and his co-accused Zimran Asim were scapegoated to balance a blood-soaked narrative.
And now, even when a higher court offers a shred of hope, the local court undermines it through inaction. This is not just a failure of justice — it is a weaponization of the judiciary against the country’s most vulnerable.
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are often brandished as tools of divine morality, but in reality, they are chains used to silence the innocent, particularly religious minorities. Akash Karamat’s case is not the exception. It is the rule.
Even Akash’s lawyer, Asad Jamal, has said that the continued delay is unconstitutional — a blatant violation of fundamental rights. He now plans to move the Lahore High Court under emergency legal provisions. But why should it come to this? Why must a child’s release be fought for like a war?
Because Pakistan’s justice system, when it comes to Christians, is often not a court of law. It is a prison of prejudice.
The silence of the Pakistani government in this matter is deafening. The inaction of human rights commissions, the indifference of the courts, the hesitation of the media — all of it screams one truth: Christian suffering doesn’t matter here.
Akash Karamat should be free. He should be home with his parents. Instead, he is held hostage by fear — the fear of radicals, the fear of backlash, the fear of standing up for what is right.