Facebook post sparks mob killings
A mob angry at a Facebook post by a member of the Ahmadiyya minority group set fire to several houses in eastern Pakistan, killing a grandmother and her two grandchildren, officials said on Monday, 28 July 2014.
Several dozen armed men from the majority Sunni Muslim community ransacked an Ahmadiyya residential compound in Gujranwala city of central Punjab province shortly after midnight Sunday, police official Malik Asghar said.
The mob doused the houses with petrol and set them alight, killing a woman in her mid-50s and two girls aged seven and one, Asghar said. The clash started after an Ahmadiyya boy shared with a Sunni friend a Facebook post that fellow Muslims considered blasphemous.
The creator of the Facebook post previously lived in the same neighbourhood as the one that was attacked, police said.
Killings and persecution of religious minorities are common in Pakistan where hurting the religious sentiments of Muslims can result in a blasphemy charge, punishable by death.
An estimated 1,300 people have faced charges of blasphemy since 1986, according to the human rights unit of the Law Ministry. Around 60 were killed by members of the public before their trials had concluded.
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