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A 41-year old man, Mushtaq Ahmed, has been stoned to death by an enraged mob for allegedly burning the Muslim holy book (Quran) inside a local mosque at the district of Khanewal in Punjab province, Pakistan.
The custodian of the local mosque, Mian Mohammad Ramzan, said he saw the deceased burning the Quran on Saturday evening.
Ramzan pointed out that he saw smoke inside the mosque, which is adjacent to his home, and rushed over to investigate.
According to him, he found one Quran burned and saw a man attempting to burn another, saying “people were starting to arrive for evening prayers as I was shouting for the man to stop.”
The ill-fated man has been mentally unstable for the last 15 years and according to his family often went missing from home for days begging and eating whatever he could find
Police spokesman, Chaudhry Imran, explained that police rushed to the scene, where a man was found surrounded by an angry crowd.
“Officer Mohammad Iqbal and two subordinates tried to take custody of the man but the group began throwing stones at them, seriously injuring Iqbal and slightly injuring the other two officers,” Imran said.
Chief of Tulamba police station, Munawar Gujjar, said he rushed reinforcements to the mosque but they did not arrive before the mob had stoned to death the man and hung his body from a tree.
A police team that reached the village before the stoning began took custody of a man but the mob snatched him away from them
“The ill-fated man has been mentally unstable for the last 15 years and according to his family often went missing from home for days begging and eating whatever he could find. The body was handed over to the family,” Gujjar said.
He said investigators were scanning available videos to try to identify the assailants, adding that the police had so far detained about 80 men living in the mosque’s surroundings but that about 300 suspects took part.
Witnesses said a police team that reached the village before the stoning began took custody of a man but the mob snatched him away from them and beat the police as they tried to rescue him.
The witnesses asserted that later, more officers and constables reached the scene and took custody of the body.
Prime Minister, Imran Khan, expressed his anguish over the incident and said he was seeking a report from Punjab’s chief minister on the police handling of the case.
“They failed in their duty. We have zero-tolerance for anyone taking the law into their own hands and mob lynching will be dealt with the full severity of the law,” Khan said in a tweet hours after the incident.
The Prime Minister also asked the Punjab police chief for a report on the actions taken against perpetrators of the lynching.
The killing comes months after the lynching of a Sri Lankan manager of a sporting goods factory in Sialkot in Punjab province on Dec. 3 who was accused by workers of blasphemy.
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