Eight charged over Pakistani liberal student's murder

Pakistani relatives and residents carry the coffin of student Mashal Khan, who was killed by his classmates, at his funeral in Swabi district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on April 14, 2017. AFP

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN // Eight Pakistanis who brutally murdered a fellow university student over his liberal views were charged with murder and terrorism on Saturday.

Mashal Khan, a journalism student, was stripped, beaten, shot, and thrown from the second floor of his hostel at the Abdul Wali Khan university in the conservative northwestern town of Mardan on Thursday by a large mob.

Inside Khan’s ransacked university hostel room, there were posters of Karl Marx and Che Guevara still hanging on the walls, along with scribbled quotes including one that reads: “Be curious, crazy and mad.”

The day before, a heated debate over religion with fellow students broke out at the dorm and led to people accusing Khan of blasphemy against Islam. That attracted a crowd that grew to several hundred people, according to witnesses.

The mob kicked in the door, dragged Khan from his room and beat him to death, witnesses and police said.

So far a total of 12 people have been arrested over the incident and police are hunting for more suspects.

“Eight students were presented before an antiterrorism court in Mardan over murder and challenging the writ of the state,” public prosecutor Rafiullah Khan said.

Prime minister Nawaz Sharif said he was “shocked and saddened”.

“Let it be known to the perpetrators of this act that the state shall not tolerate citizens taking the law in their own hands,” Mr Sharif said.

Mushtaq Ghani, information minister of north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said the government had also requested Peshawar high court to conduct a judicial probe into the incident.

Video footage from the crime scene showed dozens of men outside the hostel kicking and hurling projectiles at a body sprawled on the ground.

His death is the latest violence linked to accusations of blasphemy in Pakistan. At least 65 people have been murdered by vigilantes over blasphemy allegations since 1990.

Those who knew Khan described him as an intellectually curious student who openly professed devotion to Islam but asked many questions.

“Whatever he had to say, he would say it openly, but he didn’t understand the environment he was living in,” said one of Khan’s teachers at the university, who declined to be named for fear of retribution.

Aziz ur Rehman, a caretaker at the hostel who witnessed Khan’s debate with his fellow students, said he brought up arcane subjects such as whether the offspring of Adam and Eve would have married each other, raising the issue of incest.

Rights activists and civil society organisations held small protests in several Pakistani cities on Saturday condemning the murder.

“We urge the authorities to take firm action and bring the perpetuators to speedy justice,” said Neil Buhne, United Nations resident coordinator in Pakistan.

“Pakistan has strong legal institutions and it is unacceptable for anyone to take the law into their own hands.”

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan criticised “the state’s abject failure to protect Mashal Khan’s right to life” saying it “has created great panic and horror among students and academia. Unless all those who played any part in Mashal’s brutal murder are brought to justice, such barbarity will only spread”.

Mr Rehman, the caretaker, said Khan was alive when the police arrived, but that they did not approach the hostel until it was too late.

“They could have easily saved his life but they stood away from the mob ... I heard one officer say it’s good that they sent this non-believer to hell,” he said.

Mardan police chief Mohammad Alam Shinwari denied the allegation that officers did not do enough to save Khan.

“When we entered the campus, he had already been killed and the mob was trying to burn his body,” he said.

In Khan’s home town of Swabi, around 60 km south of Mardan, his father Iqbal Shaer said the accusations of blasphemy were unfounded. “First they killed my son and now they are adding salt to our wounds,” he said.

Mr Shaer, who runs a small business selling biscuits and chocolates to local retailers, said he had always been a lover of poetry and literature and encouraged his children to express themselves and appreciate the arts.

He added: “My wife told me this morning that she spent her life taking care of her son, but those who killed him have wasted that long struggle.”

At Khan’s funeral, the imam at the local mosque refused to read the last rights, according to Swabi resident Salman Ahmed. A technician who was asked to do so in the cleric’s place was confronted by several people afterwards. Khan has since been buried.

* Agence France-Presse and Reuters