Pakistan's PM Khan vows action after man lynched over blasphemy accusation

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered action against a mob and any police who acted as onlookers to the killing of a mentally ill man over blasphemy-related violence.

"The lynching will be dealt with full severity of the law. We have zero tolerance for anyone taking the law into their own hands," Khan said in a statement on Sunday.

He said he had asked Punjab officials for a "report on action taken against perpetrators of the lynching…and against the police who failed in their duty".

Dozens of people have been arrested over the lynching, which happened on Saturday in a remote village in Punjab province, after it was alleged that the victim had burned some pages of the Quran, according to Tahir Ashrafi, the prime minister's special representative on religious harmony.

"The man's family say that he was mentally ill and his mental health wasn't right for the past 10 to 15 years," Ashrafi said during a televised press conference in Khanewal district, where the lynching happened.

"This is not the religion of my Prophet, to kill people under your own interpretation of religion," he added.

READ MORE: Mob kills Sri Lankan over alleged blasphemy in Pakistan

Law-enforcement agencies are monitoring hundreds of other suspects.

The killing came just over two months after a Sri Lankan factory manager was beaten to death and set ablaze by a mob over blasphemy in Sialkot city, also in Punjab.

Rights groups say accusations of blasphemy can often be wielded to settle personal vendettas, with minorities largely the target.

In April 2017 an angry mob killed university student Mashal Khan when he was accused of posting blasphemous content online.

And a Christian couple were lynched then burned in a kiln in Punjab in 2014, after being falsely accused of desecrating the Quran.

READ MORE: Revisiting Mashal Khan's family a year after his lynching