By Haq Nawaz Khan and Pamela Constable April 24 at 6:01 AM

ZAIDA, Pakistan — Even in his ancestral village here in northwestern Pakistan, where 23-year-old Mashal Khan was the pride of the community, the pointed finger of blasphemy made him an instant pariah.

As word reached Zaida this month that Khan, a journalism student at a university in nearby Mardan city, had been fatally beaten and shot by an enraged student mob for supposedly blaspheming against Islam, neighbors shrank from his family in suspicion, and the local cleric refused to lead a funeral prayer.

It wasn’t until several days later, after a more complex story emerged implicating university officials and radical Muslim students in falsely accusing Khan, and police declared he had done nothing to insult his faith, that the villagers dared to express grief and organize a funeral.

“I lost my son, my friend and my light. It shattered my world,” said his father, Iqbal Khan Iqbal, a social worker and poet in his 70s. “But my greatest sorrow was that no one in the village came to offer condolences.”

Iqbal described his son as an intellectually curious, outspoken young man who had explored Sufi mysticism and studied in Russia but had never strayed from his Muslim upbringing. He expressed particular horror that Khan had been killed by fellow students, reportedly egged on by university officials in retaliation for criticizing official policies. Police have arrested 22 people in the case.