PESHAWAR: Pakistani police opened a hate speech investigation involving two Muslim clerics on Sunday after the killing of a university student over allegations he committed blasphemy.
The clerics are accused of attempting to disrupt the funeral of student Mashal Khan, who was beaten to death by fellow students after a dormitory debate was followed by accusations of blasphemy being spread across a university campus in the northern city of Maradan.
University officials had issued a public notification hours before the murder naming three students being investigated for “blasphemous activities.”
Blasphemy is an extremely sensitive topic in Muslim majority Pakistan, where penalties range from small fines to the death sentence, and dozens of people are on death row in the country’s jails.
There have been at least 65 recorded cases of vigilante murders since 1990, according to figures from a Center for Research and Security Studies report and local media.
In a statement released to the press on Saturday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said he was “shocked and saddened by the senseless display of mob justice that resulted in the murder of a young student, Mashal Khan, at Wali Khan University.”
Mardan police chief Alam Shinwari said 20 people had been identified as culpable in the killing on the basis of videos taken during the attack, and 15 had been arrested. He said they would be tried by anti-terrorism courts.
Police say they are also investigating the clerics in Khan’s hometown of Swabi, some 60 kilometers south of Mardan, for attempting to disrupt funeral proceedings and instigate hatred against the dead student’s family.
“The two clerics ... the mosque loudspeaker for hate speech against the slain student and his family and ... created hurdles for the people and another cleric to participate in the funeral,” a senior Swabi police official told Reuters. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted by religious hard-liners.
A local imam had refused to lead the funeral prayers at Khan’s funeral on Friday, according to Swabi resident Salman Ahmed. A technician who was asked to do so in the cleric’s place was confronted by several people afterwards.
In his press release, the prime minister said the perpetrators of the attack would be brought to justice.
“The nation should stand united to condemn this crime and to promote tolerance and rule of law in society,” Sharif said.
However, Pakistan’s government has been vocal about blasphemy in recent months, with Sharif issuing an order in March for the removal of content deemed blasphemous online and threatening “strict punishment” for those violating the law.
Pakistan hate speech investigation against clerics after student killed for alleged blasphemy
Pakistan hate speech investigation against clerics after student killed for alleged blasphemy
Afghanistan says it thwarted Pakistani airstrike on Bagram Air Base as fighting enters fourth day
- The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years
- Pakistan accuses Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it
KABUL: Afghanistan thwarted attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former US military base north of Kabul, authorities said Sunday, while cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretched into a fourth day.
The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years, with Pakistan declaring that it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan.
The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.
Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants until a Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting. But several rounds of peace talks in Turkiye in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and the two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.
On Sunday, the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military jets had entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base” at around 5 a.m.
The statement said Afghan forces responded with “anti-aircraft and missile defense systems” and had managed to thwart the attack.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.
Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic US withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, US President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a US presence at the base.
The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday.
Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.
The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.
After Thursday’s Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.
Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having seized it during fighting Friday. The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless.”
Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday in the border areas.
The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday morning.
Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday, killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
