LAHORE: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed annoyance and deep grief over the brutal murder of a college principal by a student the other day under the suspicion of blasphemy in tehsil Shabqadar of district Charsadda. The shocking incident occurred after the student had allegedly been reprimanded over his absence from college. The student reportedly had skipped college to attend the Faizabad dharna in November 2017. In a statement here on Tuesday, HRCP stated that: “This killing is yet another shameful reminder of how easy it still is to manipulate the existing blasphemy laws to avenge personal grievances. Blasphemy remains a highly sensitive issue and allegations do not need to be proven before provoking murder. Last year, Mashal Khan’s murder by a mob in Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan led to countrywide outrage and calls for the blasphemy law to be modified. Mashal Khan had been accused of blasphemy over social media although a postmortem investigation of the case found Khan to be innocent. It is regrettable that no lessons are being learnt from these incidents and no action is being taken at all by the authorities to prevent such episodes. This incident is further confirmation of the slide toward extreme intolerance in societies on the one hand and, on the other hand, the apathy and inability of the authorities to meet the challenges of extremism.” Published in Daily Times, January 24th 2018.