Pakistan's Supreme Court has delayed an appeal into the country's most notorious blasphemy case against a Christian mother on death row since 2010, after one of the judges stepped down.
Thousands of security troops had been deployed in the capital, Islamabad, as the court prepared to hear a final appeal in the case of Asia Bibi on Thursday.
The court did not immediately set a new date for the appeal.
But the threat of violence was largely abated when one of the three-judge bench, Justice Iqbal Hameed ur Rehman, told the court he had to recuse himself from the case.
"I was a part of the bench that was hearing the case of Salmaan Taseer, and this case is related to that," he told the court.
Taseer, a liberal provincial governor, was shot dead in Islamabad in 2011 after speaking out for Bibi. [Al Jazeera English] Read more
