Journalism student lynched by screaming mob for 'blasphemy' In Pakistan

 A university student was killed, and another critically injured in Pakistan's Mardan town

, when fellow students attacked them for publishing blasphemous content on Facebook.


The deceased has been identified as Mashal Khan, a student at the Journalism and Mass Communication department at the Abdul Wali Khan University . Police have arrested 15 people in connection with the murder.

The university has been shut, and all hostels vacated till further notice. Sources said a vigilante mob of over 3,000 people attacked Mashal and his friend Abdullah on the campus. An eyewitness reportedly told Pakistani Dawn TV that Mashal and Abdullah were believed to be promoting Ahmadi faith on Facebook.
Not only did a lynch mob beat to a pulp and then shoot dead the  23-year-old journalism student in Pakistan, it then continued to pound the boy's lifeless body with sticks - all of this in the clear light of day, Pakistan media reported today.

As the newspaper said, blasphemy in pakistan  "carries the death penalty...In many cases, an accusation alone is enough to inspire vigilante action against suspects."

The murder occurred at Abdul Wali Khan University in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province yesterday. The student, Mashal Khan, studied at the university's journalism department.
Police said the student was murdered by his fellow students on the university premises, The Express Tribune reported.
Police further said the murdered student had been accused of running Facebook pages "which allegedly published blasphemous content".

After they killed Mashal and then continued to hit his body, "the charged students then wanted to burn his body," before police intervened, a police official told Dawn.

An eyewitness at the scene of the incident said the murdered student and a friend of his were attacked because they were believed to be "ppromoting the Ahmadi faith on Facebook", Dawn said.

Police said 59 people were arrested from the university for their suspected involvement in the lynching. The university has been shut temporarily.

"He was brilliant and inquisitive, always complaining about the political system of the country, but I never heard him saying anything controversial against the religion," a teacher of Mashal's told Reuters.