Religion-Fueled Mobs on the Rise Again in Pakistan By ZIA ur-REHMAN Salman Masood

The mosque in central Pakistan from which Muhammad Mushtaq was dragged and killed. Credit...Shahid Saeed Mirza/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The recent lynching of a man accused of burning pages from a Quran underscored Pakistan’s leading status as a site of religious violence.

KARACHI, Pakistan — Last month, a man named Muhammad Mushtaq was accused of burning pages of the Quran inside a mosque in central Pakistan. A mob armed with sticks, bricks and axes gathered at the mosque and dragged him out. Mr. Mushtaq was tortured for hours and eventually killed, his body hung from a tree. A handful of police officers were among those who watched.

The Feb. 12 killing in the district of Khanewal was denounced across Pakistan. Prime Minister Imran Khan said the government had “zero tolerance” for such mob violence and promised that the police officers would be punished. But lynchings over offenses to Islam, real or imagined, are far from new in Pakistan, where blasphemy is punishable by death. Rights activists say lynch mobs exploit anti-blasphemy laws to take matters into their own hands. In recent years these episodes have risen to an alarming level, with increasing cases of fatal violence.

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