Mardan police on Friday arrested five more suspects in the Mashal Khan murder case, police officials told DawnNews.

District Police Officer (DPO) Mardan Dr Mian Saeed said the latest arrests, which include three students and two employees of the university, were made from different districts.

The DPO Mardan noted that out of the 49 identified suspects, 47 had been arrested so far.

the two suspects who remain at large are believed to be hiding in tribal areas, he added.

Investigation teams have been formed for their arrests, while the coordination of political agents in tribal areas has also been sought, Saeed said.

The arrests come a day after Mardan's Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police Mohammad Alam Shinwari announced the arrest of a member of the lynch mob who had shot Mashal Khan.

The DIG said the man arrested was Mashal's classfellow and a student in the university's journalism department. He added that the pistol with which Imran shot Mashal had also been recovered and the suspected had "accepted his crime" during investigation and interrogation.

Mashal, 23, a student of Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan (AWKUM) was shot and beaten to death by a violent mob on university premises on April 13.

Police officials said that he had been accused of running Facebook pages "which allegedly published blasphemous content".

Read more: Mardan university student lynched by mob over alleged blasphemy: police