72
LAHORE: A middle-aged man was stoned to death by a mob over alleged desecration of the Holy Quran in a remote village of Khanewal district on Saturday.
The killing comes on the heels of an identical incident in Sialkot, where a Sri Lankan engineer was lynched by factory workers on Dec 3 last year on blasphemy charges.
The Saturday incident took place in Jungle Dera village where hundreds of locals gathered after Maghrib prayers following announcements that a man had torn some pages of the Holy Quran and later set them on fire.
With no one ready to listen to the suspect, who reportedly claimed innocence, the villagers first hanged him with a tree and then hit him with bricks, until he died.
According to an eyewitness, a police team which reached the village well before stoning arrested the suspect but the growing mob snatched him from the SHO’s custody. Chief Minister Usman Buzdar sought a report from IGP Rao Sardar Ali Khan.
Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2022
