What were the “Actual” Interests of Mashal Khan on Social Media

Some things are too horrific in life to forget. One of them is what happened to Mashal Khan. His ruthless murder and the video on it is not only crude, it is so intense in its violence that one cannot erase it from memory. What of his parents and family if we, who just got know him after his death can’t seem to forget?

Mashal Khan Murder Case

Who actually was Mashal Khan? 

Within days the young man with many dreams and aspirations was turned into a monster by some. Social media on which he used to voice his thoughts, share poetry, give opinion of politics, social issues turned against him. His twitter account shows a total of some 800 tweets none of which give even an inkling of him being blasphemous. If anything his tweets reflected his mature thought process, his interest in poetry by Pakistani poets, his urge to learn more about the world around him.

Mashal Khan was like all young men, maybe even better. Maybe he had the potential to do something better for society in the years to come. 

Some of his tweets are verses from Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Pashtun poet Ghani Khan, Sahib Sabir Shah and Ayub Sabir. As a student of journalism he was on the right path; he was reading, thinking, reflecting, absorbing things happening around the world.

Some of his tweets mentioned rights of women, transgender people, minorities, and even animals. Most of his tweets were about social justice.

In short it seems he was quite a normal young man, with normal interests, with no thought of instigating unnecessary hatred towards anyone.

He did leave behind many questions.

Yesterday the Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) in Abbottabad gave the most awaited verdict on Mashal Khan murder case. On the murder of the young and aspiring Mashal khan, the court gave death sentence to one culprit, while announcing life imprisonment to 5 convicts, 4 years in prison to other 26 men involved in the brutal mob attack. The rest of the 26 people initially also charged were acquitted by the court for lack of evidence.

His family’s reaction after yesterday’s verdict, read here

Mashal Khan was a journalism student at  Abdul Wali Khan university in Mardan. He was alleged killed for saying blasphemous things. Later it was revealed that someone had framed him on blasphemy accusations by making fake social media accounts with his name.