ISLAMABAD: Thousands of people dragged a Pakistani man accused of desecrating Islam's holy book from a police station in central Pakistan, beat him to death and then set his body on fire, a police official said.

The incident highlighted the highly charged nature of Pakistan's blasphemy laws, under which anyone found guilty of insulting Islam's prophet or the Koran can be sentenced to death.

Sometimes people take the matter into their own hands.

A senior police officer, Mohammed Azhar Gujar, said in the incident on Tuesday in Bahawalpur, a city in a deeply conservative part of central Pakistan, attackers stormed a police station where the man was being interrogated.

Mr Gujar said the victim seemed mentally unstable. Residents said he threw pages of the Koran into the street.