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Blasphemy was used as an excuse to target Mashal: Imran Khan

By
Shakeel Farman Ali

April 18, 2017

SWABI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan visited the house of Mashal Khan to offer his condolence to the slain student’s family on Tuesday.

Khan, sitting alongside the father of Mashal Khan, stressed that no one would be allowed to misuse the blasphemy law to kill someone.

“The purpose and reason was something else and blasphemy was used as an excuse to target Mashal,” he said.

Khan said that being a father himself, he could understand what Mashal’s family was going through and vowed that those responsible for this barbaric crime would be brought to justice.

The PTI chairman said Mashal did not commit any blasphemy and that his killers would not be spared.

“All of Pakistan is united that those who committed this sin [of murdering Mashal] will be punished,” he said.

Khan pointed out that KP chief minister Pervaiz Khattak had ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident even before the Supreme Court took suo moto notice of the matter.

Read: KP police submits report on Mashal lynching case to the Supreme Court

Khan reiterated that the law of the jungle cannot be allowed to prevail and said he had come to visit Mashal’s family to assure them that justice will be done.

Following his visit to Mashal's residence, the PTI chief tweeted that the slain student's family had requested him to make sure those involved in Mashal's murder are brought to justice and that the university is renamed after Mashal Khan.

Khan promised to make every effort possible to fulfill their requests.

Mashal Khan, a student of journalism at Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, was lynched by an angry mob on April 13 which had accused him of blasphemy.

Read: Teacher says Mashal was not given chance to prove his innocence

Imran Khan earlier termed the lynching of Mashal Khan a "defining moment" like the attack on Army Public School Peshawar and vowed to take it to its "logical end".

Speaking on Geo News' programme 'Capital Talk' on Monday, Khan likened the brutal lynching to the gruesome APS carnage which had unified all political parties and led to the National Action Plan to wipe out terrorists from the country.

The PTI chairman said on the show that Mashal's killing had brought a consensus. "People are scared of the incident, the fact that a person can decide that someone has committed blasphemy and kill him".

"Anyone can create a fake blog of mine and write something that Imran Khan has committed blasphemy. And someone comes and kills me without inquiring," Khan said, while elaborating the seriousness of the matter.

"This is worse than the law of the jungle," he maintained. "That was horrific, what came forth," he said as he vowed to punish those responsible in a way that people fear doing any such thing in future.

Conspiracy behind son’s murder

Speaking to Geo News, the father of Mashal Khan, Muhammad Iqbal said the facts of his son’s murder were now being cleared. “This was a conspiracy and those behind it should be caught and interrogated and asked why he (Mashal) was murdered,” Iqbal said, adding that doing this would unveil the corruption in the university.

Read: 'Those who I trusted my son with, killed him'

Iqbal Khan further said Mashal had not spoken to him about the corruption at the university but had given an interview to a local television channel in which he spoke of decreasing fees and multiple positions being held by staff members.