A Muslim woman in Pakistan on Wednesday was sentenced to death after being convicted of sending an allegedly blasphemous caricature of prophet Muhammad to a friend on WhatsApp, a court said, according to AFP.

In Pakistan, blasphemy or the act of speaking profanely about god or sacred things is punishable by death. Also, caricatures of the prophet are forbidden in Islam.

The woman, 26 year old Aneeqa Ateeq, was arrested in May 2020 based on a complaint by her friend Farooq Hassanat, PTI reported.

Hassanat had claimed that Ateeq had sent her blasphemous messages. When asked to delete it, Ateeq allegedly refused. Subsequently, Hassanat approached the cybercrime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency with the complaint.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws were created by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq four decades ago.

At least 80 people have been jailed in Pakistan on charges of committing blasphemy, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, AFP reported.

Several people have also been killed in the country on the mere suspicion of committing blasphemy.

In December 2021, a Sri Lankan man was lynched and his body was burned by a mob in the Sialkot district. He had allegedly desecrated the posters with the name of prophet Muhammad.