lahorePakistani police have arrested at least 50 suspects in connection with the kidnapping and murder of a man accused of blasphemy. The authorities gave this information on Monday. The person killed in the mob attack was already in police custody. Hundreds of angry Muslims gathered at the Nankana district police station in Punjab province on Saturday.
Those in the crowd were told that a man named Waris had desecrated a copy of the Koran, Islam’s holy book. According to the district’s police chief, Babar Sarfaraz Alpa, the mob accused Waris of pasting pictures of him, his wife and the knife onto book pages, displaying them and throwing them out on the street. The blasphemy charge carries the death penalty under Pakistani law.
According to officials, a mob stormed the Warburton police station on Saturday and some of them used wooden ladders to climb over the wall and opened the front gate for the mob to enter the station premises. Following this, a crowd of hundreds of people entered the police station. When additional police forces arrived on the scene to save the prisoner’s life, the mob lynched him. The people involved in the crowd were about to burn his body when the police dispersed the crowd.
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Alpa said Monday that police had arrested at least 50 people involved in the attack. He said raids are underway to arrest other people involved in the attack. Waris was arrested on blasphemy charges in 2019 and was in jail until mid-2022.
Police say Waris again insulted the Quran and some witnesses caught him and beat him. The police had arrested Waris. According to the police, the crowd later attacked the police station and the people killed him saying they were punishing him for insulting the Koran. In this regard, a statement indicated that the authorities have fired the station manager and the deputy police commissioner for the area for failing to prevent the attack.