Several expressed concern for the image their tiny village was getting. Neighbors and shopkeepers said security agencies told them to say nothing of Hassan or the Paris attack. You may not agree, but he did right thing.”
Sitting on a traditional rope-woven bed in a dusty compound she shared with several family members she said: “Religiously he did the right thing. “He never went looking for mischief like some of those other boys. “Young people from our area want to live in Europe.” But, he added, “all our friends said if they were in his place they would have done the same if they had seen anything blasphemous against Holy Prophet (PBUH).”Īli’s long-time neighbor Amina, in her 80s, remembered Hassan as a good boy. “He went to France because compared to other countries, like Saudi Arabia, earning there is much better,” a childhood friend, Ikram, said of Hassan. Only a few months after Hassan arrived in France, Labbaik Party-backed protesters rallied and blocked roads in the district and other parts of Pakistan in November 2018, furious that a young Christian woman, Asia Bibi, was freed from death row where she’d faced execution on blasphemy charges. In the district where Kotli Qazi is located, Tehreek-e Labbaik holds powerful influence.
