"Formerly a visiting lecturer at the Department of English Literature of the Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU), Multan, Hafeez was booked on blasphemy charges and was arrested by police on March 13, 2013. The trial of the case started in 2014," reported Dawn News.

"Additional Sessions Judge Kashif Qayyum sentenced Hafeez to death and a fine of Rs 0.5 million under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC); in case of default he will undergo further imprisonment of six months. He was also sentenced to life imprisonment under Section 295-B, and 10 years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs100,000 under Section 295-A of the PPC," reported the news channel.

Amnesty demands release of scholar:

Pakistani authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Junaid Hafeez, a 33-year-old lecturer at Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan, said Amnesty International.

"Junaid, who was also in the process of getting a graduate degree in English Literature, was charged with blasphemy over Facebook uploads," Amnesty International said in a statement.

“Junaid’s case is a travesty. Pakistani authorities must guarantee his safety and that of his family and legal representatives. Their failure to do so in the past has already borne the worst consequences,” said Rabia Mehmood, Regional Researcher at Amnesty International.

Human Rights Watch had earlier said: "The government’s indifference to the abuses under the blasphemy law and the violence it provokes is discriminatory and violates rights to freedom of religion, belief, and expression. Hafeez’s case presents the government not only an opportunity to address the injustices of his trial by dropping the charges against him, but the blasphemy law more generally, by moving toward repealing it and sparing the many people whose lives the law has adversely and unfairly affected."

Imran Khan on the same day targeted India and accused its nuclear-armed neighbour to be moving away from 'pluralist India'.

He tweeted: "Over the last 5 years of Modi's govt, India has been moving towards Hindu Rashtra with its Hindutva Supremacist fascist ideology. Now with the Citizens Amendment Act, all those Indians who want a pluralist India are beginning to protest & it is becoming a mass movement."