A Muslim religious leader who was killed after his speech at an opposition party rally in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was deemed blasphemous.
A Pakistani man has been beaten to death for allegedly making blasphemous remarks at an opposition party rally in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a local police official told Al Jazeera.
Nigar Alam, a local Muslim religious leader, was asked to address a rally organized by former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in Sawaldher village in Mardan district.
Alam was killed by the mob after he “made some blasphemous remarks that angered people,” a local official who asked for anonymity told Al Jazeera.
The police initially managed to get Alam to safety in a nearby shop, but the mob broke through the door, forcibly dragged him out and beat him with truncheons. He died on the spot.
Video of the lynching has been widely shared on social media, with police unsuccessfully seen trying to stop a frenzied mob beating the man.
Alam’s body has been taken to hospital for further examination and an investigation is ongoing, the official said.
“We have submitted an initial information report in which the police themselves are the prosecutor, but due to the sensitivity of the case, the FIR has been sealed,” he added.
Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unsubstantiated allegations can lead to gangs and violence.
In February, an angry mob broke into a police station in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, snatched a person accused of blasphemy from his cell and killed him.
In December 2021, a Sri Lankan national, Priyantha Diyawadanage, who worked as a factory manager in Pakistan, was beaten to death and set on fire by an angry mob over blasphemy charges.
Then Prime Minister Khan had openly criticized Diyawadanage’s assassination, calling it a “day of disgrace for Pakistan”. Months later, six people were sentenced to death for their role in the vigilante murder.
The same happened to Mashal Khan, a 23-year-old student who was lynched on his university campus after a debate about religion.
International and Pakistani rights groups say blasphemy charges have often been used to intimidate religious minorities and settle personal scores. The Pakistani government has long been under pressure to change the country’s blasphemy laws, but other political forces in the country have vigorously opposed it.
More than 2,000 people have been charged with blasphemy since 1987 and at least 88 people have been murdered by gangs following similar charges, according to the Center for Social Justice, an independent minority rights group.