Qur’an and gun, sÃ, Qur’an and fruit, no
Yet another victim of Pakistan’s viciously unjust blasphemy laws, and the vigilantes who all too often enforce them — while Pakistani officials and the “human rights community” look the other way.
“Pakistani Mob Kills Man After Fruit Found Wrapped In Koran Pages,” from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, December 11 (thanks to Twostellas):
QUETTA, Pakistan — Pakistani officials say an angry mob killed a man and wounded three others in the southwestern city of Quetta over the desecration of a Koran.
Balochistan’s provincial home secretary, Asad Gilani, says the violence began on December 11 after a man at Quetta’s Hazar Ganji fruit market found a crate of Iranian-grown pomegranates that were wrapped in pages torn from the Muslim holy book.
An angry mob quickly formed and began shouting slogans against Shi’a, who form a majority in Iran, and then marched to Quetta’s main market, Liaquat Bazar, in the city center trying to shut down shops.
Amid the chaos, a gunbattle broke out at Liaquat Bazar that left one dead and three injured.
RFE/RL’s correspondent in Quetta reports that hundreds of Sunni men from Ahl-e Sunnat Waljamaat, a conservative Islamist party, were on the streets of Quetta protesting and calling for government action.
That group claims that the fruit arrived from Iran already wrapped in the Koran pages.
But police are also investigating the possibility of a provocation aimed at stirring up violence against Quetta’s ethnic Hazara Shi’ite community.…