Mob kills Christian couple in Pakistan for 'blasphemy'

Victims burned alive in a brick kiln.

Men stand at the brick making factory where a Christian couple were burned alive Tuesday in Kot Radha Kishan town on the outskirts of Kasur district, Punjab province

Lahore:  A Christian couple was burned alive in a brick-making kiln after being accused of desecrating the Qu'ran in Pakistan's Punjab province on Tuesday, police said.

Police have arrested at least 40 people in the killing of Shahzad Masih, 26, and his wife, Shama Masih, 24, in Kot Radha Kishan town on the outskirts of Kasur district, said Jawad Qamar, a district police officer.

"So far police have rounded up 40 suspects, including the owner of the kiln," he said.

Muhammad Afzal, a supervisor at the kiln where the victims also worked, allegedly accused Shama Masih of burning pages of a Qu'ran outside her house on Sunday, according to eyewitness Muhammad Rasheed.

Rasheed said that the two were then locked in a room until Tuesday morning when a mob armed with clubs brutally beat the couple before throwing them into the kiln.

"The dead bodies were charred beyond recognition," said Christian rights activist Sardar Mushtaq Gill, who visited the crime scene.

Gill also alleged that the couple were killed in the presence of police, who could not stop the mob.

He quoted another eyewitness, Muhammad Rafiq, as saying that announcements were made from a mosque's loudspeaker accusing Shama Masih of committing blasphemy, which instigated the vigilante violence.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has set up a three-member committee to fast track the investigation into the killings and ordered police to beef up security in Christian neighborhoods in the province, according to an official from his media office.

In a statement, Pakistan opposition leader Imran Khan also condemned the killings.

"I condemn, in strongest terms, the burning alive of the Christian couple," he said. "Oppression and killings of minorities must end."

Global rights watchdog Amnesty International in a statement urged the Pakistani authorities to bring to justice those responsible.

"This vicious mob killing is just the latest manifestation of the threat of vigilante violence which anyone can face in Pakistan after a blasphemy accusation — although religious minorities are disproportionately vulnerable," said Amnesty's Deputy Asia Pacific director David Griffiths.

"Those responsible must be brought to justice and the Pakistani authorities have to ensure at-risk communities are proactively given the protection they need."

Blasphemy laws, which carry life imprisonment or death, are a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan, where in addition to members of minority religions, several high-profile Muslims have been killed for seeking changes to the law.

Former Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, and the federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic, were assassinated in 2011 for speaking out against the controversial law.

The latest blasphemy case comes after a Pakistani court last month upheld the death sentence of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was sentenced to death in 2010 for allegedly making derogatory comments about the Prophet Muhammad.

Source: AFP/UCAN