Police said on Friday they had arrested a cleric accused of leading a mob trying to kill a Christian couple for allegedly desecrating the Holy Quran.

Police had rescued the Christians from the crowd near Lahore on Tuesday, a relatively unusual intervention in a country where those accused of blasphemy are sometimes lynched on the spot.

“One of the clerics who led the mob demanding the arrest of the couple and their death was at large, he was arrested today (Friday) and we are looking for a barber who ignited the whole issue,” Sohail Zafar Chattha, the district police chief, told AFP.

Another cleric was arrested earlier in the week.

Police officer Sohail Zaffar Chattha said the cleric leading the mob demanded that police arrest the couple and charge them with blasphemy against Islam.

“I told him I would not register a case because no blasphemy has been committed. But I have registered a case against the cleric and 400 others for inciting violence and endangering the lives of the couple,” Chattha said in a telephone interview.

About 500 people in Sadar Farooqabad town attacked Owais Masih and his wife after a neighbour complained that they were sleeping on a plastic sheet with verses from the Quran written on it.

Police rescued the couple as the mob began to beat them. The couple were later taken into protective custody and moved to an undisclosed location.

“The mob meant business. They wanted to kill them right there,” Chattha said. “And all because they are poor, illiterate people who didn’t realise that a line from the Quran was written on a sheet they had purchased.”

Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan. The charge is hard to fight because the law does not define clearly what is considered blasphemous.

Even presenting the evidence in court can sometimes itself be considered a fresh infringement.