COURTNEY BONNEAU/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
Pakistani police rescued a man from a mob that wanted to lynch him for allegedly insulting the Quran — then took him into custody on suspicion of blasphemy.
The man, identified as Humayun Ullah, was arrested Tuesday as the angry crowd tried to grab him on a street in Khazana, an area in deeply conservative northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border, according to the Associated Press.
Protesters later threw stones at the police station and threatened to burn it down if Ullah wasn’t turned over to them, police officer Nasir Khan told AP.
Gunshots were heard nearby and video posted on social media showed hundreds of people blocking a road near the police station, AP said.
Ullah allegedly made derogatory remarks about the Quran, the Muslim holy book, during a heated argument with his brother at the family’s home, Khan said.
His arrest took place near where a mob burned a police station and four police outposts when officers refused to turn over a mentally ill man accused of desecrating the Quran in November 2021.
Islam is Pakistan’s national religion and anyone convicted of insulting it or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death. Multiple people have received death sentences for blasphemy but no one has been executed.
Tuesday’s arrest came two months after officials said police in southeastern Pakistan killed a doctor who was in custody after being accused of blasphemy, then falsely claimed he died in a shootout between officers and gunmen.
The doctor, Shah Nawaz, had surrendered after a mob burned his clinic and authorities promised him a chance to prove his innocence, AP reported at the time.
