{"id":36589,"date":"2019-03-21T12:26:27","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T12:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=36589"},"modified":"2019-03-21T12:26:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T12:26:27","slug":"pakistan-convicts-two-over-mashal-khan-blasphemy-lynching-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=36589","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan convicts two over Mashal Khan blasphemy lynching case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Pakistani<\/a> anti-terrorism court sentenced two men, including a local government official, to life in prison on Thursday for their role in the brutal campus lynching two years ago of a university student accused of blasphemy.<\/p>\n

Mashal Khan<\/a>, 23, was attacked and killed by a mob<\/a> on the campus of a university in Mardan, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, following a dormitory debate about religion.<\/p>\n

In February last year the court convicted 31 people, sentencing one person to death, while acquitting 26 others.<\/p>\n

A joint investigation team had later found the blasphemy allegations against Mashal Khan to be false.<\/p>\n

Outrage over the killing raised concerns about the misuse of Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws, which stipulate the death sentence for insulting Islam or the Prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n

On Thursday the court sentenced two more men to life imprisonment, while acquitting two others.<\/p>\n

Arif Khan, a local government official who had been a member of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s<\/a> ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, was convicted for provoking and participating in the lynch mob.<\/p>\n

The court ruling noted two videos in which Khan is seen “torturing Mashal” and “congratulating his co-accused for committing the murder”.<\/p>\n

Khan’s grave continues to be guarded by police, due to fears that it will be defaced by religious hardliners despite his name being cleared of blasphemy.<\/p>\n

In a separate case in the eastern city of Bahawalpur, a college student was arrested and charged on Wednesday for stabbing his English professor to death.<\/p>\n

Police said the student was angered by a farewell party that the professor was organising, believing it was un-Islamic as women would attend.<\/p>\n

In a video of his pre-interrogation released on social media, the student confessed to stabbing his professor Khalid Hameed, saying he “spoke against Islam” and that “it’s a good thing” he died.<\/p>\n

He said he had not reported his professor to the authorities because “the law protects blasphemers”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Reuters news agency<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court sentenced two men, including a local government official, to life in prison on Thursday for their role in the brutal campus lynching two years ago of a university student accused of blasphemy. Mashal Khan, 23, was attacked and killed by a mob on the campus of a university in Mardan, in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}