Earlier this year, a mob killed three members of the minority Ahmadi religious community in the central city of Gujranwala over an allegedly blasphemous image posted on Facebook. However on Tuesday, a Christian couple, accused of burning pages of the Quran in eastern Pakistan, was killed and incinerated by an enraged Muslim mob.
According to the police officials and labor activists, the incident on Tuesday was the latest attack on Pakistan's religious minorities after the Facebook blasphemy rampage in July. The Wall Street Journal reported the authorities said the Pakistani mob beat the couple to death and then threw the bodies into a kiln.
The Pakistani police officials said the incident took place at the town of Kot Radha Kishan in Punjab province, some 40 miles southwest of the city of Lahore. In a New York Times report, the killings is the latest violent outbreak of religious intolerance in the nation, where members of minorities are frequently accused of blasphemy.
The two victims killed by the Pakistani mob were Shahzad and Shama Masih, who had four children and were believed to be in their mid-20s. The couple worked as laborers at a local brick kiln. The allegations against them started after burned pages of the Quran were allegedly found in their trash.
Meanwhile, the three members of the Ahmadi minority sect that were accused of posting a blasphemous image on Facebook was burned to death on July 27, 2014. According to police reports, the victims were a woman and two of her young granddaughters.
The authorities reported the Pakistan mob of roughly 1,000 people started storming through an Ahmadi community after being alerted to the Facebook photograph. The mob set houses on fire and injured at least eight other people.
Ahmadis belong to a reform sect rooted in Islam. However, under Pakistani law, the group are banned to identify themselves as Muslim. They come under frequent attack and have often been targeted under Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws.
The blasphemy accusation in July was brought against Aqib Saleem, an 18-year-old Ahmadi teenager who has allegedly uploaded a Facebook photo of the Kaaba, the scared shrine in Mecca toward which Muslims turn when they pray, with a seminude white woman sitting on top. It started the rampaging of a large mob on the Ahmadi neighborhood.
In Pakistan, blasphemy is an extremely sensitive issue and critics debated the laws which are often misused to settle personal scores and that minorities are unfairly targeted. Since the '90s, BBC News reported that several Christians have been found guilty of desecrating the Quran or of blasphemy.
As word spread on Tuesday, the victims were reportedly locked up in a room adjacent to the brick kiln by their employer, Yousaf Gujjar, who also had a running argument with the couple over money. Hundreds of people converged, broke down the door and dragged the couple out. The police said the victims were tortured and then burned in the kiln.
"By the time police arrived, the couple was already dead," local police chief Jawad Qamar told local news media. "Their bodies were totally burned."
The chief also added a criminal case had been filed against at least 460 people, and 48 people had been arrested. The police were conducting raids to detain more suspects. Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif has formed a three-member committee to investigate the latest killings. Furthermore, the police have been ordered to increase security around Christian neighborhoods in Punjab.
The blasphemy laws carry strong punishments in Pakistan, which include death and life imprisonment. Though the Pakistani government has never executed anyone convicted of blasphemy, simple accusations of it often provoke mob violence and deadly vigilante attacks comparable to the Facebook rampage in July and the killings on Tuesday.
The vicious Pakistani mob violence on Tuesday and the Facebook rampage in July clearly manifested the ongoing threat of vigilante attacks which anyone can face after a blasphemy accusation in Pakistan. And a simple allegation alone can put a person and the community in great jeopardy.
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