Pakistani Christian couple killed by mob

A young Christian couple have been beaten and then burned to death by a mob in a small Pakistani village in Punjab province, after being accused of desecrating the Muslim holy book, police and rights activists have told Al Jazeera.

Shahzad Masih and his wife Shama were killed in the village of Kot Radhakishan, about 55km south of Lahore, the provincial capital, on Tuesday, Muhammad bin Yameen, a local police official, told Al Jazeera.

"There [were allegations] that they had desecrated the Quran yesterday, and then when people found this out, they got together to form a mob," he said.

"There were a lot of people gathered there, from many of the surrounding villages as well."

Shahzad and Shama locked themselves in a room, but the mob of dozens of villagers broke through the door and beat them "with fists and sticks", Yameen said.

He said that police had attempted to stop the mob, but had been outnumbered.

The mob then dragged the couple’s bodies to a nearby brick kiln, where they burned them.

It is unclear whether Shahzad and Shama were alive at the time of being thrown in the kiln, according to Nadeem Anthony, an investigator with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), but the evidence points to them being severely injured but still breathing.

Anthony, who visited the site on Wednesday, said the attack on the couple was instigated using local mosques at the behest of a local brick kiln owner, over a monetary dispute amounting to approximately Pakistani Rs100,000 (US$ 970).

"Let me be clear that there was no burning of the Quran there. I can say this categorically," Anthony told Al Jazeera, explaining that Shama had burned some paper with Arabic writing on it worn as a taveez [a local charm], not verses of the Quran.

"People said that there was still some life in them when they were thrown into the kiln to be burned."