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(LifeSiteNews) — On the evening of June 20, a mob of enraged Pakistani Muslims beat a man to death over his alleged desecration of the Quran in the Madyan area of the nation’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swat district, Asia News Network reported.
Reports revealed that the victim was a native of Sialkot district in Pakistan’s Punjab province and was a tourist to the Swat region.
Eight people were also wounded in the frenzied chaos, Swat District Police Officer (DPO) Dr. Zahidullah Khan testified.
Khan said an infuriated mob “attacked the police station” and took the suspect of the alleged desecration episode away. “People set fire to the police station and a mobile vehicle,” the DPO explained, elaborating that the suspect was “torched” to death.
A video shared on social media depicted an angry crowd surrounding a body ablaze in the middle of a road.
In turn, authorities have mobilized local police to the Madyan area to calm the situation down, Khan stated.
“And the madness continues… We are hellbent to commit suicide as a society,” former information minister Fawad Chaudhry bemoaned in response to the recent killing.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party published a statement saying that Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur was aware of and voiced regret regarding the “unfortunate” incident.
Pakistan’s Islamic “blasphemy” law states that any ��derogatory remarks, etc, in respect of the Holy Prophet [Muhammad] either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”
During the rule of General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s, the law was boosted as part of the general’s drive to “Islamize” Pakistan. Physical violence and other forms of discrimination against non-Muslims in Pakistan has become commonplace as a result, partly owing to the ambiguous wording of the law. Pakistani lawmakers in both houses of Parliament passed a law in August 2023, known as the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2023, that could imprison someone accused of insulting any wife, family member or companion of the Prophet Muhammad for life.
Even with the strict laws in place, vigilante mobs have killed dozens of people accused of “blasphemy” prior to trial. Victims have been “burned to death, hanged by mobs, shot dead in courtrooms and hacked to death on the side of the road, among other forms of extrajudicial executions,” according to Qatar-based news site Al-Jazeera.
In 2011, Pakistan’s Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by his bodyguard when he urged for a reform of the “blasphemy” laws.
In May of this year, Nazir Masih, a Pakistani Christian, was accused of burning pages of the Quran in Pakistan’s Mujahid colony and was subsequently attacked by hundreds of armed assailants.
Unfortunately, Masih succumbed to his injuries on June 3, but authorities in the Sargodha district of Punjab bailed out most of Masih’s attackers who lynched him. In August 2023,a Muslim mob torched churches and houses in a Christian settlement in Jaranwala, an industrial district of Faisalabad in Pakistan, targeting specifically two of the settlement’s members for allegedly desecrating the Quran.
Following Masih’s murder, UCA News reported that a Pakistani non-governmental organization, Human Rights Focus Pakistan (HRFP), declared in a statement on June 16 that it is “highly concerned” about the quick post-arrest bails of 52 Sargodha mob attackers on Masih’s family, calling into question the authorities’ efforts to procure justice for Masih and his family.
HRFP asserted that its investigations found that the allegations of “blasphemy” against Masih were concocted, just like other cases of alleged “blasphemy” by Christians.
“The same format has been seen in the practice in both [Sargodha and Jaranwala] incidents and many other blasphemy cases, from the use of Quranic papers, provoking people, mob attacks, burning homes and properties and after all that the attackers easily get bail and released within few days,” the rights group proclaimed, positing that intelligence reports have disclosed that “the same people from same extremist groups have accused multiple innocents.”
Masih’s attack ignited street protests among Christians in various parts of Pakistan, with around 300 Christian protestors calling for lawmakers to repeal the country’s harsh blasphemy laws on June 8 in Lahore. Demonstrators decried the government for not preventing repeated Muslim mob attacks premised on false accusations of “blasphemy.” During Masih’s funeral, Christian pallbearers chanted “Praise to Jesus” and “Jesus is great.”
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