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| June 17, 2006 | Saturday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 20, 1427 |
Accused slain in police custody: Muzaffargarh ‘blasphemy’ case
MULTAN, June 16: An under-trial blasphemy accused was stabbed to death by two assailants on Friday on the premises of the Muzaffargarh district and sessions court.Reports reaching here revealed that Abdul Sattar Gopang had just entered the court compound in the police custody when the assailants, who were later identified as Iqbal Ahmad and Muhammad Imran, attacked him with daggers.
The police authorities said two officials, sub-inspector Abdul Ghafoor and constable Altaf Karim, also suffered wounds when they tried to overpower the attackers who were reportedly stabbing Gopang ruthlessly.
When the assailants were overpowered at last, Gopang was said to be profusely bleeding. He was wheeled to the Muzaffargarh District Headquarters Hospital where he breathed his last before any medical aid could be provided to him. The injured police officials were, however, said to be in a stable condition at the hospital.
Initial investigations revealed that the attackers were interns of a seminary in Shehr Sultan area of Muzaffargarh. Some eyewitnesses said the assailants did not try at all to flee and were chanting slogans when the police took them into custody.
The acting district police officer, SP Zubair Dareshak however claimed that the accused were caught escaping. He said they were even wearing gloves to avoid impression of their finger prints on the weapons they used to kill Sattar Gopang.
A contractor of octroi collection of a union council in Jatoi tehsil (Muzaffargarh), Sattar Gopang was arrested on March 13 this year on the report of Maulana Abdul Rasheed, a local office-bearer of the Aalmi Majlis Tahafuz-i-Khatam-i-Nabuat. The complainant had alleged that while exchanging hot words with truck driver Muhammad Akram over the fee slab, Gopang had uttered blasphemous attributes against the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Gopang’s killing is the second incident of its kind in southern Punjab in the last two days. In the previous incident, a highly-charged mob belaboured to death a 60-year-old retired schoolteacher, Muhammad Sadiq, on Thursday in Mandi Chunnawala village in Hasilpur tehsil, Bahawalpur. Some area people had accused Sadiq of burning pages of the Holy Quran.
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