Police arrest mob instigator in Mashal murder case

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MARDAN: An employee of Abdul Wali Khan University, wanted for inciting the mob to murder Mashal Khan over unfounded blasphemy allegations, has been arrested, Mardan police said on Sunday.

The latest arrest of AWKUM employee, identified as Bilal Baksh, has taken the tally of total suspects in police custody to 34. According to Mardan DPO Mian Saeed, Bilal, a computer operator at the university, shouted slogans calling for the murder of Mashal Khan and incited the mob, which was beginning to gather around Mashal, to carry out the horrific lynching.

On Saturday, police arrested another suspect, a student named Amir, from Tangi tehsil in Charsadda. The suspect was identified in the lynching video that surfaced soon after the horrific killing of Mashal at the hands of the violent mob. Amir was reportedly a close friend of the main suspect Wajahat, who confessed to the crime before a magistrate in Mardan on April 17 and said he acted on the directions of some employees of the university administration.

Mashal Khan, who was a student of journalism at AWKUM, was lynched by an enraged mob at university premises on April 13 which had accused him of blasphemy.