British newspapers are reporting that the UK did not offer asylum to Asia Bibi after Theresa May refused the appeals of Cabinet ministers.

Reports in The Daily Mail and The Sun accuse the Prime Minister of rejecting the plea of Home Secretary Sajid Javid to grant the Pakistani Christian mother asylum over fears that it would compromise the safety of British diplomats in Islamabad and stoke tensions among British Muslims.

The Prime Minister and UK Government have not formally commented on whether Britain is offering asylum to Bibi.

However, the Catholic Herald reports that Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Prime Minister's special envoy on freedom of religion and belief, last week suggested that doing less may be the best approach.

'It is entirely appropriate that maybe less is more,' he said.

'But in saying that, it does not mean that we are not doing anything. We are doing a great deal.

'We are working both with Pakistani authorities and like-minded countries so that whatever Asia Bibi and her family chooses to be, however that can be supported, that the British Government will continue to extend its support in that regard.'

Britain has come under pressure to offer the mother-of-five asylum after repeated threats to her life since her release three weeks ago.

Bibi spent the last eight years in prison on death row before the Pakistani Supreme Court acquitted her of blasphemy charges at the end of October.

Radical hardliners have staged angry protests calling for the acquittal to be reversed, and threatened to kill Bibi and the judges who granted her freedom. Her lawyer also fled to the Netherlands out fear for his life.

Bibi and her family are now in hiding but there are reports that they are being hunted door to door by Islamic hardliners.

John Pontifex, of Aid to the Church in Need UK (ACN), told the Guardian he had been in regular touch with the family since Bibi's release and that they were fearing the worst.

'They have told me that mullahs had been reported in their neighbourhood going from house to house showing photos of family members on their phones, trying to hunt them down,' he said.

'The family have had to move from place to place to avoid detection. Sometimes they can only operate after sundown. They have had to cover their faces when they go out in public. They have had to remove the rosary that hangs from their car rear-view mirror for fear of attack.'

He added: 'They say that if they are not allowed to find a future outside Pakistan, the fear is that sooner or later something terrible might happen to them.'

Britain's silence on Bibi comes despite numerous high-level ministers voicing support for an offer of asylum.

Conservative Party Vice Chairman and the Prime Minister's trade envoy to Pakistan, Rehman Chishti, resigned from both positions earlier this month over Britain's failure to offer Bibi asylum.

In his resignation letter, Chishti called on May to personally intervene in the case to 'ensure that a morally right decision is finally made which takes into account our core values, irrespective of the position that any other country may take on this'.

'What I found shocking, is that the British Government is failing to put into practice the core values that our country stands for; religious freedom, justice, morally doing the right thing, and that when we see injustice where an individual's life is in clear danger and they have been persecuted for their faith, we do all that we can to help them,' he wrote.

'The Government should not wait to see if another country offers sanctuary, we should have had the conviction to lead on this matter and offer sanctuary ourselves straight away.'

Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has also urged the British Government to make an offer of asylum in a letter to Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

'I am well aware, as a former Foreign Secretary, of the constant threat to our overseas missions, but we cannot allow the threat of violence to deter us from doing the right thing,' he said, adding that Bibi had suffered 'appalling treatment' for her faith and had an 'overwhelming claim for compassion from the British government'.