Peshawar: In a shocking incident, a mob beat a Pakistani student to death at his university campus on Thursday after he was accused of sharing blasphemous content on social media.


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The deceased was identified as Mashal Khan, a student at the Journalism and Mass Communication department of Abdul Wali Khan University (AWKU) in Pakistan`s Mardan town.


The horrid video of this incident has gone viral.


A group of about 10 students shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the attack on fellow student Mashal Khan, who was stripped naked and beaten with planks until his skull caved in as other students looked on, the video showed.


Blasphemy is a highly sensitive topic in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where insulting the Prophet Mohammed is a capital crime that has dozens languishing on death row and where even an accusation can lead to violence.


The Pakistani Police has arrested 10 students in connection with the gruesome incident.


Mardan Deputy Inspector General of Police Alam Shinwari said the dead student was accused of running Facebook pages which allegedly published blasphemous content. Police took the body away but students kept demanding it back.


Shinwari said: “After severe torture that led his death, the charged students then wanted to burn his body."


Watch the video:



At least 65 people have been murdered over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to figures from a Center for Research and Security Studies report and local media.


It was unclear exactly what online posting had prompted the blasphemy accusation against Khan, who was studying journalism.


 


In 2011, a bodyguard assassinated Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer after the governor called for reforming blasphemy laws.


Taseer`s killer, executed last year, has been hailed by religious hard-liners as a martyr to Islam and a shrine has been erected at his grave.