LAHORE: A violent mob attacked and injured a man for allegedly burning the pages of Holy Quran in Faisalabad’s Tandlianwala area on Sunday. However, the Punjab police rescued the accused person and shi­fted him to an undisclosed location.

The province has seen two deaths related to mob lynching in the past two months.

On Sunday, a mob carrying clubs, bricks and other hard objects surrounded the house of the accused and attacked him.

Already alerted, the police rescued the man and shifted him to an undisclosed location, the inspector general of Punjab police (IGP) told Dawn. The police have also transported other family me­m­bers of the man to anot­her area for safety reasons.

Police officers in the district were trying to engage religious leaders of all sects to ensure peace in the area, the IGP said.

“We received an emergency call at 15 at about 5.30pm on Sunday that a Shia scholar had defiled the Holy Quran,” Faisalabad SSP Operations Mubashar Maikan told Dawn.

He said the police patrolling team responded instantly and rescued him. “The person seems to be abnormal,” he said, adding that he was evacuated from that place and shifted to a safe location.

It was the third mob attack incident related to alleged blasphemy that took place in Punjab in nine weeks. On Dec 3, a mob killed a Sri Lankan citizen and burnt his body.

The second lynching took place in Mian Channu just a day ago (on Saturday).

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2022