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Teacher is killed by female colleague and her nieces who slit her throat after a relative 'DREAMT' she had insulted the Prophet Mohammed in Pakistan

A teacher was killed by a female colleague and her nieces outside an all-girls school after a relative 'dreamt' she had insulted the Prophet Mohammed, Pakistan police said today. Pictured: Female students queue outside a school in Pakistan (file photo)
A teacher was killed by a female colleague and her nieces outside an all-girls school after a relative 'dreamt' she had insulted the Prophet Mohammed, Pakistan police said today. Pictured: Female students queue outside a school in Pakistan (file photo)

By Chris Jewers For Mailonline and Afp

A teacher was killed by a female colleague and her nieces after a relative dreamt she had insulted the Prophet Mohammed, Pakistan police said today.

The two students and a teacher ambushed Safoora Bibi yesterday at the main gate of the all-girls school and attacked her with a knife and stick, officers said.

'She died after her throat was slit,' police official Saghir Ahmed said. 

The two girls told police a relative had dreamt the dead woman 'had committed blasphemy' against the Prophet Mohammed, officers said, adding they were also investigating if the main suspect, Umra Aman, had a personal grudge.

Aman is a colleague who planned the crime with her two nieces studying at the Jamia Islamia Falahul Binaat school, police said.

Azeem Khan, another police official, confirmed the details.

The incident took place Tuesday in Dera Ismail Khan in the country's ultra-conservative northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

The killing is the latest in the country related to the hugely sensitive issue of blasphemy. Few issues in Pakistan are as galvanising, and even the slightest suggestion of an insult to Islam can supercharge protests and incite lynchings.

Known as madrassas, religious schools have long served as vital lifelines for millions of impoverished children in Pakistan, where social services are chronically underfunded.

But critics say students can be brainwashed by hardline clerics who prize rote learning of the Koran over core subjects such as maths and science.

Rights groups say Pakistan's blasphemy laws are often wielded to settle personal vendettas.

Pictured: The remains of a damaged vehicle in Sialkot is seen on December 3, 2021 after police confirmed that a Sri Lankan factory manager was beaten to death and set ablaze by mob, in an incident local media reported was linked to alleged blasphemy

Pictured: The remains of a damaged vehicle in Sialkot is seen on December 3, 2021 after police confirmed that a Sri Lankan factory manager was beaten to death and set ablaze by mob, in an incident local media reported was linked to alleged blasphemy

Last year, a Sri Lankan factory manager working in Pakistan was beaten to death and set ablaze by a mob after being accused of blasphemy.

In February, a man was stoned to death in a remote village in eastern Pakistan for allegedly desecrating the Koran. 

The custodian of local mosque said he saw Mushtaq Ahmed, 41, burning the Muslim holy book inside the mosque on Saturday evening and informed the police. The subsequent violence took place in a village in Punjab province.  

An in January, a Muslim woman was sentenced to death for sending caricatures of Prophet Muhammad over WhatsApp, a court said.

Aneeqa Ateeq, 26, was arrested in May 2020 and charged with posting 'blasphemous material' as her WhatsApp status, according to court documents. 

The Centre for Social Justice - an independent group advocating for the rights of minorities - says at least 84 people were accused of committing blasphemy last year, and three people were killed by lynch mobs over similar allegations.