KARACHI: Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Sunday said that Pakistan belongs to all Pakistanis and is not the property of any particular religion or sect.
Speaking to students of the University of Gujrat earlier today, Asif said that the country belongs to all those who identify themselves as Pakistanis and stressed that every religion gives message of peace, love and harmony.
Commenting on the horrific Mardan lynching incident, the minister said that the tragic murder in the name of religion is shameful for the administration of Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan.
“The name of religion is used for settling personal scores,” he lamented, and urged the federal and provincial governments to take a stand to avoid such incidents in future.
Asif also noted that both Allama Iqbal and Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah were progressive individuals.
On Saturday, Khawaja Asif in his tweets condemned the mob violence at Abdul Wali Khan University, which claimed the life of 23-year-old Mashal Khan.
Mashal Khan, a journalism student at Abdul Wali Khan University, was brutally murdered on April 13 by an angry mob which accused him of blasphemy. He was stripped, beaten, shot, and thrown from the second floor of his hostel at the university.
Following the incident, an Anti-Terrorism Court charged eight students with murder and terrorism and granted police a four-day physical remand of the suspects.
Police registered two separate cases against 20 suspects under clauses 427, 297, 302 and 148 of the Pakistan Penal Code and section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The suspects were identified from video footage of the gruesome incident.
So far, 16 people have been arrested over the lynching and police are hunting for more suspects.
On Saturday, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Saqib Nisar took suo moto notice of the tragedy and directed Inspector General police Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Salahuddin Mehsud to present a report on the incident within the next 36 hours.
