Native vacationer killed in Pakistan’s Swat over blasphemy allegations | Faith Information

Islamabad, Pakistan – A 36-year-old man has been killed and his physique burned in Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after he was accused of desecrating the Quran, the holy ebook of Muslims.

The incident occurred on Thursday night in Madyan, a city within the Swat district, a preferred vacationer spot situated 280km (174 miles) from the capital metropolis of Islamabad.

Police officers in Swat reported that the person, whose identification has not been disclosed, was a vacationer from Sialkot, Punjab, who had been accused of “insulting the Quran”. It’s unclear exactly what the person did.

“Our police group reached the primary market in Madyan to arrest the person and took him to the police station, however the crowd demanded to have him handed over,” a police official instructed Al Jazeera on situation of anonymity.

Officers added that a big group of a whole bunch of individuals gathered exterior the Madyan police station the place the person was being held by police, attacked the premises and dragged the person out earlier than killing him. How he was killed is unclear, though one police supply based mostly on the central Swat police headquarters, about one hour away from Madyan, instructed Al Jazeera by phone that the person had been “tortured to demise”. Movies circulating on social media present a big crowd chanting spiritual slogans and surrounding a burning physique.

A senior Swat police official, Zahid Ullah Khan, instructed the media that the group additionally set fireplace to the police station and a police automobile. He added that investigations into the incident had been beneath approach.

Nevertheless, the police haven’t confirmed whether or not a First Info Report (FIR) was filed concerning the incident or if any arrests have been made.

Officers on the Civil Hospital in Madyan confirmed to Al Jazeera that no less than eight folks had been introduced in in a single day with minor accidents from the incident, and all have been handled and discharged.

Whereas visitors was quickly halted by means of the primary market space of Madyan in a single day, native officers said that the scenario on the town has returned to regular with companies working and vacationer visitors flowing as typical.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur additionally condemned the vacationer’s demise and requested a direct report on the incident from the police.

In line with a press release from the chief minister’s workplace, Gandapur directed the provincial police chief to take emergency measures to regulate the scenario.

Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy legal guidelines

Pakistan’s blasphemy legal guidelines are based mostly on the authorized system of its British colonial rulers, who launched legal guidelines associated to faith in 1860 to quell Hindu-Muslim violence within the Indian subcontinent.

These legal guidelines remained unchanged following Pakistan’s creation in August 1947, however had been first amended in 1974, when a constitutional modification declared the Ahmadiyya sect, a 500,000-strong spiritual minority which considers itself to be Muslim, as “non-Muslim”.

Through the rule of army dictator Basic Zia-ul-Haq from 1977 to 1988, the legal guidelines had been additional strengthened with new legal offences resembling defiling the Quran, insulting Islam’s prophet, or utilizing “derogatory” language about sure spiritual figures.

Blasphemy stays some of the delicate topics in Pakistan, the place even insinuations of accusations can result in widespread violence.

Since 1987, greater than 2,000 folks have been accused of blasphemy, and no less than 88 folks have been killed due to such allegations, based on the Centre for Social Justice, an impartial group based mostly in Lahore advocating for minority rights, which compiles information referring to blasphemy instances in Pakistan.

Final month, in Sargodha, Punjab, a 70-year-old Christian man was attacked and critically injured by a gaggle of individuals, who accused him of desecrating the Quran. The group then began a riot, setting outlets on fireplace and damaging homes belonging to different Christian households within the space.

Police managed to regulate the violence and rescue the accused, however he died from his accidents 9 days later.

In yet one more incident in February final yr, in Nankana Sahib, Punjab, an indignant group attacked a police station and killed a person who had been accused of blasphemy after forcibly eradicating him from police custody.

In August 2023, Christian communities in Punjab’s Jaranwala city confronted widespread assaults on their houses and church buildings following accusations of Quran desecration by two brothers. Greater than 22 church buildings had been burned down, and practically 100 homes had been broken.

Arafat Mazhar, a Lahore-based tutorial researching Pakistan’s blasphemy legal guidelines, mentioned the difficulty raises critical considerations concerning each safety and civil rights. “There may be nothing extra terrifying than blasphemy-related violence.”

“Within the Nineteen Eighties, the Pakistani state made a promise that anybody hinting or insinuating blasphemy, whether or not malicious or not, could be killed,” Mazhar instructed Al Jazeera. “This led to a surge in blasphemy accusations, and when folks noticed the state didn’t fulfil its promise, nonetheless absurd, they took the regulation into their very own fingers.”

Mazhar emphasised that whereas there may be growing intolerance in society on account of “the growth of far-right hate teams”, the basic drawback lies with the legal guidelines that criminalise blasphemy.

“The state should rethink the promise it made a long time in the past. It must counter the surge in blasphemy accusations, radically amend the regulation and stop its misuse towards folks.”