The head of Pakistan's leading body of Muslim clerics Tuesday demanded
fair treatment for a young Christian girl accused of blasphemy, as a
medical report said she appeared to be mentally subnormal.

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Allama
Tahir Ashrafi, chairman of the All Pakistan Ulema Council, said if
Rimsha, accused of burning papers containing verses from the Koran, was
found to be innocent, her accusers should face justice.The cleric
said protesters who demonstrated to demand punishment for the girl, who
reportedly suffers from Down's Syndrome, were following the "law of the
jungle".Rimsha has been held since August 16 under the Islamic
republic's strict blasphemy laws, prompting concern from Western
governments and the Vatican and anger from rights groups.After
confliciting reports about her age, she was taken on Monday from prison
to hospital for tests, which said she was "approximately 14", according
to the assessment by a seven-doctor panel seen by AFP.The local
cleric who handed Rimsha over to police insisted on Friday that she was
fully aware of what she was doing when she burned the papers, but the
medical report suggested she may be mentally impaired."She appears uneducated and her mental age appears below her chronological age," the single-page report said.

Around
120 uniformed police officers guarded the hospital during Rimsha's
visit, a senior doctor told AFP on condition of anonymity.Blasphemy
is an extremely sensitive subject in the nation of 180 million people,
97 percent of whom are Muslims, and those convicted of defaming Islam or
desecrating the Koran can face life imprisonment or even the death
penalty.In July a mob of more than 2,000 snatched a mentally
unstable man from a police station, beat him to death and torched his
body after he was accused of burning pages from a Koran.Ashrafi
urged the government to take action to protect Christians in the poor
Islamabad suburb of Mehrabad, where Rimsha lives, and encourage
Christian families who fled in fear after the incident to return."This
is inhuman that those who have nothing to do with the case or are not a
party to it are also being harassed," Ashrafi told AFP."It is
just like the law of jungle that 500 people approached a police station
and got a report forcibly lodged with the police."Human rights
activists have warned blasphemy laws are often used to settle personal
vendettas and last year two prominent politicians were assassinated for
speaking out against the legislation.Ashrafi said Rimsha's case should be a watershed for Pakistan's blasphemy laws.

"We
demand an impartial and thorough investigation into the case. Strict
action should be taken against all those accusing the girl if she is
found innocent," he said."The government should make this case an example so that nobody will dare misuse the blasphemy law in future."

The
intervention from Ashrafi, a prominent member of the Defence of
Pakistan council, a coalition of right-wing and hardline Islamist
groups, was somewhat unexpected, but he warned that if the case was
mishandled it would reflect badly on Muslims."It happened many
times that weak probes in such cases led to defaming our religion. It is
because of this reason that we have demanded a thorough and fair
probe," he said.After Rimsha's age was determined by doctors, her
lawyer Tahir Naveed Chaudhry said they had applied to have her case
proceed under juvenile law.At a brief hearing in the case on
Tuesday, Judge Raja Jawad Hassan adjourned proceedings until Thursday
after defence lawyers submitted a bail application.