[DAWN] MOBS do many things in Pakistain: they harass women, they burn down buildings, they torch cars; they are guilty of devastating Gojra, of tearing the bodies of Muneeb and Mughees Butt to pieces, cheering the killer of a governor, mourning the death of a dictator. They are guilty also of the murder of a man named Mashal Khan. For anyone who needs to refresh their memory of the horror, in the parade of horrors that ticks by on news channels every day, he was the man killed by a mob after being dragged out of his hostel room at Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan.Mashal Khan was a student of mass communications; but to his murderers he was merely a target of vengeance and hatred, all the poison of intolerance cast on a single body. Such was the level of brutality that the mob continued beating him long after he was dead. Weeks later it turned out that university officials had conspired with students who disagreed with Mashal Khan’s liberal views and orchestrated the attack. A number of them were suspended from their positions as the investigation proceeded. The student who ultimately shot Mashal Khan was also identified.
Mashal Khan was murdered last April, and last week there was the beginning of accountability for the murderers who take refuge in mobs. On Feb 7, an ATC judge announced the verdict in the Mashal Khan case at Central Jail Haripur. Per the verdict, one man was sentenced to death, five were given life sentences, and 25 other men, all accused in the case, were sentenced to three-year imprisonment. Twenty-six of the 57 men accused of the crime were acquitted. According to the judgement, there was not enough conclusive evidence that the 26 men who were set free had committed any overt act in the killing of Mashal Khan ‐ although it appeared that they were identified in the video of the lynching.