A Pakistani trial court has acquitted a blind Christian man who spent 10 months in jail after being charged with blasphemy, an offense that carries a mandatory death sentence under the country’s notorious laws.

The director of the UK-based Minority Concern Pakistan, Aftab Alexander Mughal, told Crux Now the acquittal is an encouraging development but warned that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, “have been widely misused to settle personal disputes and enmities.”

Moreover, Mughal said, Christians “have been disproportionately targeted.”

Authorities in Pakistan had charged 51-year-old Nadeem Masih – who has been blind since birth – under Section 295-C of Pakistan’s blasphemy law criminalizing acts of insult to Muhammad, and mandates the death penalty upon conviction.

The court in Lahore ruled that prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the allegations.

Masih’s family had consistently denied the allegation, insisting that the case stemmed from a dispute with local contractors.