An angry crowd stormed a police station in Pakistan, brutally killing a man arrested on suspicion of blasphemy.
Hundreds of men broke into the guard and lynched the detainee and devastated the building, local media reported on Saturday.
Videos of the event circulated on social media.
The man had been accused of desecrating the Koran.
Pakistan has strict blasphemy laws
Police confirmed the incident in Nankana Sahib district of Punjab province.
Punitive measures have been ordered against several police officers because they fled the building and thus failed to prevent the lynching of the detainee, a spokesman said.
"Nobody should take the law into their own hands, no matter how influential they are," said the local police chief.
Pakistan has strict blasphemy laws, and blasphemy is an extremely difficult issue in the Muslim country.
Those accused of this can also be targeted by so-called “blasphemy vigilante groups” — extremist Muslims who have shot, set fire to, or beaten to death alleged heretics.
In 2020, a US-Pakistani national was shot dead in a courtroom during an ongoing hearing.
In 2021, a Sri Lankan man was beaten to death and set on fire by fellow workers in Pakistan following allegations of blasphemy.
yeah/dpa
