Eight people have been charged with murder and "terrorism" of the journalism student Mashal Khan, according to court officials" in Pakistan. Two other students of the Abdul Wali Khan university were injured by the mob that killed Mashal who accused them of blasphemy.
"Eight students were presented before an anti-terrorism court in Mardan over murder and challenging the writ of the state," public prosecutor Rafiullah Khan told the AFP news agency on Saturday.
At his funeral on Friday, Khan's father said he hoped his son's murder would "evoke realisation among people that killing an innocent is a sin".
Friday April 14, 2007
Mashal Khan, a student at the Journalism and Mass Communication department of Abdul Wali Khan University (AWKU) in Mardan, Pakistan was murdered for blasphemy by his moderate fellow students. Telling his thoughts online was his blasphemous crime in their eyes.
The Mardan Deputy Inspector General of Police Alam Shinwari said the dead student was accused of running Facebook pages which allegedly published blasphemous content. Shinwari said, “After severe torture that led his death, the charged students then wanted to burn his body." Apparently the police had already taken away the corpse of Mashal but students kept demanding it back.
More at Pam Geller's website.
In 2011, Punjab's provincial governor Salman Taseer was assassinated by his bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri after the governor called for reforming blasphemy laws. His killer was executed last year for his murder but, has been lauded by religious hard-liners as a martyr to Islam, so a shrine has been erected at his grave. Salman Taseer's son was also kidnapped in 2011 but was found alive in 2016 (Time article).
