(21 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Swat district, Pakistan – 21 June 2024
1. Various of remnants of a fire
2. People taking photographs
3. Various of burnt vehicles outside a police station, police officers
4. Burnt out police van with motorcycles in back
5. SOUNDBITE (Pashto) Ziaul Haq, witness:
“A man desecrated the Quran. A protest began. Then some people handed him over to police. Local officers were present in the police station. The protest intensified. The man was taken out by the mob, then he was burned. Some people burnt the police station as well.”
6. Emergency vehicle, emergency workers and a burnt vehicle
7. Burnt motorbike
8. Security personnel and a burnt vehicle
9 . Firefighter spraying water on the police station
10. Various of damage inside the police station
STORYLINE:
Police in north-western Pakistan on Friday registered a case against hundreds of people who attacked a police station and killed a man being questioned there on suspicion of desecrating the Quran, Islam’s holy book, officials said.
Police were trying to identify the people who attacked and burned the police station in Madyan, a popular tourist destination in Swat district’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on Thursday night and killed the suspect, a police official said.
Police said the suspect, identified as Mohammad Ismail, was a tourist from the eastern Punjab province and was staying at a hotel in the town when a mob accused him of burning pages from the Quran.
Ismail was being questioned by police when the mob attacked the police station and clashed with officers, police said.
According to police and a witness, Ziaul Haq, the mob later took Ismail, killed him and burned his body.
Police have not yet arrested any of the attackers.
Blasphemy accusations are common in Pakistan.
Under the country’s blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death.
While authorities have yet to carry out a death sentence for blasphemy, accusations can cause riots and incite mobs to violence.
Last month, a mob in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province attacked a 72-year-old Christian man after accusing him of desecrating pages of the Quran.
He later died at a hospital.
AP video shot by Muhammad Naveed
Production: Muhammad Farooq
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