AFP/Islamabad

Police in Pakistan arrested dozens of people yesterday after a mob beat a Christian couple to death and burned their bodies for allegedly desecrating a copy of Holy Qur’an.
Blasphemy is a serious offence in Pakistan. Local media reported the Christian couple were accused of burning a copy of the Qur’an and throwing it in a rubbish bin in the province of Punjab on Tuesday. Police said their bodies were set on fire in a brick kiln.
“We have arrested 44 people, it was a local issue incited by the mullah of a local mosque,” Jawad Qamar, a regional police chief, said. “No particular sectarian group or religious outfit was behind the attack.”
Meanwhile, relatives of the couple said yesterday that they were locked inside a brick-making factory before their murder to prevent them from fleeing their debts.
Shehzad Masih and Shama Bibi, who was four months pregnant and a mother to three children, were later beaten surrounded by a crowd of up to 1,500 villagers then thrown on top of a lit furnace, multiple witnesses said.
By the time the Muslim mob was done, only charred bones and their discarded shoes remained.
Jawad Qamar, a local police official, said according to initial reports events began to unfold more than a week earlier with the death of Shehzad’s father, a local religious healer.
“When he died, Shehzad’s wife went to his room and cleaned up the mess. There was a trunk in his room, Shehzad’s wife took the things that could be useful and threw the trash in front of her house,” said Qamar.
“The garbage collector collected the trash the next day and told a local cleric that he had collected pages of the Qur’an thrown in front of Shehzad’s house from the trash.”
Iqbal Masih, Shehzad’s older bother, said that he and his whole family were bonded workers paying off their debts to the brick kiln owner, a man named Mohamed Yousuf — an illegal practice branded by rights groups as akin to modern-day slavery.
“We take advance money from the owner and work for him, it has been going on for years. On November 3, the owner had called Iqbal and detained him sensing that he might run away to save his life,” he said tearfully.
The allegation against the factory owner was repeated by two other witnesses interviewed by AFP, but denied by his son Khawar Yousuf.  
“We don’t know what has happened, the family has been working for us for 20 years and we have never noticed anything bad.”
“It’s wrong to say that my father locked them up,” he added.