PESHAWAR: A Muslim mob burned a police station and 4 police posts in a single day in northwest Pakistan after officers refused at hand over a mentally unstable man accused of desecrating Islam’s holy e-book, the Quran, authorities mentioned Monday.
No officers had been harm within the assaults, which pressured the police to summon troops to revive order in Charsadda, a district within the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, native officer Asif Khan mentioned.
A video posted on social media confirmed the police station burning.
Khan mentioned officers foiled an try by the mob to lynch the detainee and the police moved him to a different district. He didn’t disclose the identify of the person, saying officers had been nonetheless investigating and the suspect was arrested a day in the past.
Khan mentioned officers initially resisted however fled after hundreds of demonstrators attacked the police buildings. He mentioned police prevented the usage of power to forestall casualties amongst demonstrators. The scenario in Charsadda was regular Monday, he mentioned, and regulation enforcement was looking for to arrest individuals linked to the assaults.
Blasphemy carries the demise penalty in Pakistan, the place mere allegations of the offense are sometimes sufficient to impress mob violence. Worldwide and home rights teams say that accusations of blasphemy have usually been used to intimidate non secular minorities and settle private scores.
In 2017, a bunch of scholars on the Abdul Wali Khan College within the northwestern metropolis of Mardan attacked and killed one other pupil, Mohammad Mashal, after accusing him of sharing blasphemous content material on Fb.
A Punjab governor in Islamabad was additionally shot and killed by his personal guard in 2011, after he defended a Christian girl, Aasia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy. She was acquitted after spending eight years on demise row and, receiving threats, left Pakistan for Canada to affix her household.
