Pakistan’s National Assembly has passed an unanimous resolution to condemn the “barbaric and cold-blooded murder” of a 23-year-old university student who was lynched by a violent mob over alleged blasphemy.
Mashal Khan, a journalism student, in Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan was killed by an enraged mob last week, blaming him of passing anti-Islam remarks.
The tragedy has sparked an outrage and demands to reform the laws dealing with blasphemy.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Senate or upper house of parliament has sought changes in the blasphemy laws to avert its misuse after the lynching.
Dawn reported that the Senators in yesterday’s session called for amending the blasphemy law to punish those who concoct blasphemy accusations against others and demanded a campaign against those taking the law into their own hands.
Pakistan Peoples Party senator Farhatullah Babar said a religious scholar had proposed that those who levelled false accusations should suffer the same sentence as provided for a blasphemer.
He recalled how a federal Shariat Court decision had prompted the maximum punishment for blasphemy to be increased from life imprisonment to death, reminding the house that Raja Zafarul Haq — the current leader of the House — was the chairman of law and justice committee at the time.
He said the committee had made some suggestions while approving the bill and called for that report to be made the basis of any further action.
“The assassination of Mashal Khan should make us think about concrete measures to prevent the misuse of the blasphemy law; we need to revisit this law,” he remarked.