Two Pakistani women get death sentence over 'blasphemy' murder

Two Pakistani women have been sentenced to death for murdering their madrassa teacher who they accused of committing blasphemy, police said Wednesday.

Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of insulting Islam have provoked deadly vigilantism.

Police said the "three female students allegedly slaughtered their local female cleric over blasphemy allegations" in northwestern Dera Ismail Khan city in March 2022.

A district judge "handed down the death penalty to two local madrasa students and a life sentence to one upon proving their involvement in the murder," local police official Muhammad Haris told AFP.

The pair sentenced to death are aged 23 and 24 whilst the one sentenced to life in jail is 16, he said.

The death penalty is technically allowed in Pakistan -- and courts regularly hand down the sentence -- but there have been no executions since 2020, according to Amnesty International.

Before that executions of women were not frequent, but many female inmates have languished on death row for years.