Teacher tells of Pakistani mob attack

A TEACHER has described the moment he was accosted by a Pakistani mob that lynched a liberal student accused of blasphemy – an attack which triggered shock, outrage and fear across the country.

Hundreds of men attacked journalism student Mashal Khan on Thursday, stripping, beating and shooting him before throwing him from the second floor of his hostel at the Abdul Wali Khan University in the northwestern town of Mardan.

Khan had been known for his liberal views, especially on Facebook, sparking the blasphemy allegations against him.

Some 22 people have been arrested so far over the killing, which came after the government intensified its rhetoric against blasphemy.

Ziaullah Hamdard, one of Mashal Khan’s teachers, told the private Geo TV channel yesterday that he saw students shouting slogans against Khan and another student, Abdullah.

One university employee threatened to kill Khan and cut him into pieces, Hamdard said. Then the mob began kicking in the door to a washroom where Abdullah had taken refuge.

“All this happened in seconds. They broke the door, some of them had batons, they were furious – suddenly they entered inside . . . they were not listening to anyone,” Hamdard said.

Police arrived and managed to yank a wounded Abdullah to safety, he told Geo. At the sight of blood and the crowd, he said, “I lost my courage”.

Hamdard rushed to the staff hostel, but about 20 students were already there and accused him of hiding Khan.

“They said, ‘You are a non-believer, you have hidden a blasphemer’ . . . They were crazy, they were not listening to me.

“Two of them kicked me and snatched my mobile and locked me in my room.”

Hamdard was rescued by another teacher and spirited away by police. By then Khan, who had been hiding in his own room at a nearby student hostel, was dead.

“Mashal was a diya [lamp]. They have turned off a lamp,” Hamdard told Geo.

He apologised to Khan’s parents for failing to protect their son and said his guilt had driven him to resign.

The brutality of the attack, partly recorded on a cellphone, provoked widespread condemnation, with protests in several cities over the weekend – although it took two days for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to speak out.

Yesterday, opposition leader Imran Khan vowed the perpetrators would face justice.