PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Militants attending a political party rally in Pakistan beat to death a participant accused of making a profane speech, police said Sunday.
Maulana Nigar Alam, 40, was killed on Saturday night by protesters in the town of Sawaldher in Mardan district, northeast of Peshawar, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police officer Iqbal said. Khan.
Rally attendees, gathered to express their support for the country’s judiciary, accused Alam of blasphemy when he delivered a closing prayer at the end of the rally.
“Some words of his prayer were considered blasphemous by some protesters, which led to torture and death at the hands of the angry mob,” Khan said.
Witnesses said a police officer present at the rally tried to save the man by locking him in a nearby shop, but people pushed through and attacked him.
Videos were circulating on social media showing people pushing the accused man to the ground, kicking him and beating him with sticks. The man died at the scene.
Police took the body into custody and said an investigation was underway.
Blasphemy accusations are common in Pakistan.
Pakistani police detained and later released last month a Chinese national named Tian, who was working in Pakistan on a dam project and had been accused of blasphemy by local people.
In February, an angry mob stormed a police station in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, seizing a man accused of blasphemy from his cell and killing him.
In 2021, Priyantha Diyawadanage, a Sri Lankan working as a factory manager in Pakistan, was lynched to death by a mob on charges of blasphemy.
In 2017, Pakistani student Mashal Khan was lynched on his university campus after being accused of posting blasphemous content online.