ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- The Christian girl who was allegedly framed for blasphemy by her local mullah has been hailed as a “daughter of the nation” by one of Pakistan's most senior Islamic clerics, who also vowed to guarantee her safety if she is eventually released from prison.

According to a story by Jon Boone in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the heavyweight support for Rimsha Masih from the chairman of the All Pakistan Ulema Council, a grouping of Islamic clerics, is being seen as a remarkable turn of events in a country where individuals accused of insulting Islam are almost never helped by powerful public figures.

The Guardian said in a fiery press conference at a central Islamabad hotel, Hafiz Mohammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, flanked by other senior clerics, demanded all the entities of the Pakistani state come together to investigate the circumstances surrounding the arrest last month of a girl who it is claimed has Down's syndrome.

The Guardian said he also lambasted Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti, the imam from the Mehrabadi slum neighbourhood on the edge of Islamabad, who was accused over the weekend of tampering with evidence in order to ensure the girl's conviction.

“Our heads are bowed with shame for what Chishti did,” the Guardian reported Ashrafi said.

He later said Chishti was merely the front man for other individuals “behind the scene,” who wanted to fuel local antagonism against the area’s Christian minority in order to force them to flee.

“I have known for the last three months that some people in this area wanted the Christian community to leave so they could build a madrasa there,” he said.

The Guardian reported Ashrafi said he would divulge at a later date more information about the people behind the alleged effort to construct an Islamic seminary on the properties vacated by the Christians.

The cleric, who has in the past been associated with the Defense of Pakistan Council, which includes members of banned militant groups, was speaking hours after a judge's decision to further delay a bail hearing for Rimsha until later in the week.

The Guardian reported that lawyers acting for Malik Hammad, a man from Rimsha's neighborhood who claimed to have caught her carrying away the charred remains of a book that included verses from the Qur'an, said they could not conduct a trial because the Punjab Bar Association was holding a one-day strike.

However, the Guardian said, the case against Chishti continued to grow after two more witnesses recorded statements implicating the mullah in a plot to strengthen the case against Rimsha.

The imam was accused late last week by his own deputy, Hafiz Mohammad Zubair, who told police that after Chishti was presented with the burnt refuse spotted by Malik he added two pages from the Qur'an.

“I asked him what he was doing and he said this is the evidence against them and this is how we can get them out from this area,” the Guardian reported Zubair told a Pakistani television station.

The Guardian said it is the first time in a blasphemy case that someone has ever been arrested for fabricating evidence – although it remains unclear why it took more than two weeks for Zubair to come forward with the incriminating statement.

Gabriel Francis, a lawyer at Pakistan's supreme court, said the atmosphere of fear surrounding the blasphemy law probably deterred him.

“It is very hard to come forward when in previous cases a governor and a minister were killed for speaking out,” the Guardian reported he said. He was referring to Shahbaz Bhatti, a former minorities minister, and Salman Taseer, the former governor of the Punjab. Both men were assassinated last year after they infuriated extremists by publicly criticising the blasphemy laws.

On Sunday, Ashrafi said he had been moved to speak out after reading reports that Rimsha had Down's syndrome, a condition that also affects Ashrafi's 15-year-old son. He said the Ulema Council would guarantee Rimsha's security from vigilantes or extremists if she was released.

“It would be against the honour of the country to send someone out of Pakistan due to non-provision of security at government level,” the Guardian reported a joint statement by the Ulema Council and the Pakistan Interfaith League read.

The Guardian reported Ashrafi said there was no need to change or repeal the law. That despite campaign groups claiming it is wide open to abuse, and allows people to be sentenced to life imprisonment on the basis of scant evidence that is often never challenged in court.

“There is no problem with the law – only the implementation of the law is the problem,” the Guardian reported he said.

Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, http://www.joyjunction.org He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is "Homeless in the City." Additional details on "Homeless in the City" are available at http://www.homelessinthecity.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@comcast.net.