A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Wednesday, 7 February, sentenced one person to death and gave life imprisonment to five others for lynching a 23-year-old university student who was falsely accused of blasphemy.

Of the total 57 accused in the case, the court sentenced 25 others to four-year jail term and acquitted 26 others, officials said.

Last April, Mashal Khan, a student of journalism at the Abdul Wali Khan University in the northwestern city of Mardan, was dragged out of his university accommodation by a mob of hundreds of his fellow students over rumours, which later proved to be unfounded, that he had posted some blasphemous content on social media.

He was stripped and badly beaten before being shot and his body mutilated.

Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) judge Fazal-e-Subhan announced the verdict in a jail in Haripur, due to security reasons.

While one of the accused Mian Saeed was arrested on 4 January, three more suspects, including a tehsil councillor from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, were still absconding.

After the verdict, the victim’s brother, Aimal Khan, demanded the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police to urgently arrest the absconders.

An official said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government will file an appeal in the high court against the acquittal of suspects.

Protests erupted in several Pakistani cities after brutality of the attack, recorded on mobile phone cameras, posted online.

It had stunned the public and also led to widespread condemnation, including from prominent Islamic clerics.

Students who participated in the lynching were later rounded up after being identified using CCTV footage from the university and video clips.

A Joint Investigation Team (JIT), formed to probe the lynching case, in its report in June 2017 has said that members of the Pakhtoon Students Federation, the student wing of the Awami National Party, incited the mob to kill Mashal on the pretext of blasphemy.

The report said the murder was premeditated as the group was threatened by his activities, because he would raise his voice against irregularities at his university.

According to the report, President of university employees, Ajmal Mayar, had revealed during probe that about a month before the incident, PSF President Sabir Mayar and a varsity employee, Asad Katlang, had met him and said they wanted to remove Mashal from their way as he was a threat to their group.

The investigators found no proof of blasphemy and ruled that the murder was politically motivated.

Blasphemy against Islam is punishable by death in the conservative Muslim country, and mere allegations are often enough to provoke mob violence.