PAKISTAN
MOB BURNS MAN ACCUSED OF DESECRATING KORAN ALIVE
By Hamid Sheikh
(Reuters) - A mob broke into a Pakistani police station and burnt a man accused
of desecrating the Koran alive, police said Saturday, in the latest violence
focusing attention on the country's blasphemy laws.
The man was a traveler and had spent
Thursday night at the mosque, said Maulvi Memon, the imam in the southern
village of Seeta in Sindh province. The charred remains of the Koran were found
the next morning.
"He was alone in the mosque during
the night," Memon said. "There was no one else there to do this
terrible thing.
Villagers beat the man then handed him over
to police. A
few hours later, a crowd of around 200 stormed the police
station, dragged the man out and set him on fire, said Usman Ghani, the senior
superintendent of police in Dadu district.
Ghani said around 30 people had been arrested for the murder and seven police detained for negligence.
Ghani said around 30 people had been arrested for the murder and seven police detained for negligence.
At least 53 people have been killed in
Pakistan since 1990 after being accused of blasphemy, according to the Center
for Research and Security Studies, and accusations are becoming more frequent.
Blasphemy in Pakistan is punishable by
death but it is not specifically defined by law. During court cases, lawyers
often do not wish to repeat evidence against the accused for fear of being
blasphemous themselves.
People have been arrested for just
discussing or writing about Islam, making mistakes in homework or not joining
protests against a film insulting Islam. In some cases, the accusers have had
financial disputes with those who are accused.
Most recently, international attention
focused on the case of Rimsha Masih, a Christian teenager accused of having
some burnt pages of a child's exercise book quoting the Koran in a bag of
rubbish she was carrying.
The case was dismissed last month after
a neighbor came forward to say she was framed, possibly to chase Christians out
of her neighborhood.
In the past two years, two senior
Pakistani officials who suggested reforming the laws have been shot dead, one
by his own bodyguard. Lawyers threw rose petals at the killer and the judge who
convicted him was forced to flee the country.
(Additional reporting by Mehreen
Zahra-Malik; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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