Mashal Khan lynching: PPP K-P lawmaker demands journalism dept chairperson, teachers' arrest

Nighat Orakzai files resolution in K-P Assembly Secretariat asking govt to include them in the murder investigation

PESHAWAR: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lawmaker in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Nighat Orakzai has asked the government to include the chairperson and teachers of Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan’s journalism department in the investigation of Mashal Khan’s brutal murder and arrest them.
Orakzai submitted a resolution in the K-P assembly’s secretariat on Friday demanding the government immediately arrest the department’s chairperson and teachers as well as police personnel who were present on campus on the day Mashal was killed.

“They should be included in the investigation,” her resolution states.



Mashal, 23, a journalism student at the varsity, was shot and brutally lynched on campus on April 13 by his fellow students after accusations of blasphemy were levelled against him.

Cell phone videos of the incident dominated social media and show the young man’s lifeless blood-covered body lying on the floor as students stomp on him and beat him with sticks. Several people including university administration officials and a local tehsil councillor have been arrested so far.

In her resolution, Orakzai also demanded the formation of a joint investigation team which includes an army officer so that no one can influence it.

“The criminals involved in the case should be given severe punishment publicly to give a message that anyone who breaches the law will meet the same fate,” it states.