Funeral of famed social media activist offered

M. Bilal BaseerAbbasi

ABBOTTABAD: Funeral prayer of martyred social media activist Bilal Khan offered at 3 pm on Monday at the high school ground Sheikh-ul-Bandi, Abbottabad and buried at Sheikh ulBandi graveyard adjacent to Jamia Masjid Khulf-e-Rashideen. According to the details, the social media activist and blogger Muhammad Bilal Khan was killed by unidentified assailants in Islamabad on Sunday late night.

Bilal was stabbed in the capital’s G-9/4 area and was shifted to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. According to police, the assailants called Bilal Khan to meet them after which they attacked and subsequently killed him.

He hailed from Gilgit-Baltistan and was a Shariah graduate from the International Islamic University of Islamabad (IIUI). He had more than 16,000 followers on Twitter and over 48,000 subscribers on YouTube. He was active on social media where he tweeted and talked about sensitive political issues.

First Information Report (FIR) was registered on Sunday night at 11pm at Karachi Company police station by the victim’s father Abdullah under Section 302 (premeditated murder), 304 (proof of qatl-i-amd liable to qisas), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA).

According to his father, he was at his cousin’s house in Bara Kahu, when at around 9:30pm, he received a call from a cousin namely Aitesham that he and his son had been attacked by unidentified individuals and were injured. He said that when he reached PIMS emergency, his son had passed away. He added that various parts of his body had marks of a sharp tool. He said that the incident had created fear among people and called for strict action to be taken against the suspects who had killed his son and injured his cousin. He said that his son had no personal enmity and spent his life talking about Islam. My son’s “only fault was that he spoke about the the Prophet (PBUH) and his companions”, he added, saying he was proud of his son. The late blogger’s phone is in police custody where the record is being accessed.