The Lynching of Mashal Khan | 2017 | 2/2

On April 13, 2017, a rumor moved faster than the truth ever could. Mashal Khan, a 23-year-old journalism student at a university in northern Pakistan, had spent months asking the questions no one wanted answered; about tuition hikes, about a vice-chancellor who was rarely seen on campus, about where the money was going. He wrote about it. He talked about it. And on a campus already uneasy with his outspoken, secular worldview, that was enough to make him a target.

 

Within hours, a rumor of blasphemy, later proven entirely baseless by a government investigation, turned into a mob of his own classmates and university staff. What happened next was a tragedy recorded on dozens of phones and watched by the entire country.

 

Part 1: We look into the murder of Mashal Khan and the immediate aftermath on campus, as well as his family's effort to bring justice, and to protect themselves from further harm.

 

Part 2: We follow the controversy following the initial sentencing, and uncover the systems and corruptions that allowed a group of students and university staff to lynch a student based on the country's blasphemy laws.

 

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