Police in southern Pakistan have shot dead a blasphemy suspect during an alleged shootout with armed men, in the second such killing in a week.
Police identified the man as Shah Nawaz, a doctor in the Umerkot district in the southern Sindh province, who had gone into hiding two days ago after being accused of insulting Islam’s prophet Muhammad and sharing blasphemous content on social media.
The local police chief, Niaz Khoso, said Nawaz was “killed just by chance” on Wednesday night when officers signaled two men riding on a motorcycle to stop in Mirpur Khas, a city in Sindh.
Khoso said that instead of stopping, the two men opened fire and tried to flee, prompting police to return fire. One of the suspects fled on the motorcycle, while the other was killed, he said.
Khoso claimed that it was only after the shootout that officers learned that the killed man was the doctor being sought by them for the alleged blasphemy.
Videos circulating on social media showed local clerics throwing rose petals at police and praising officers for killing the blasphemy suspect. There was no immediate clarification from the Sindh government about the circumstances in which the suspect was killed.
The killing of Nawaz drew strong condemnation from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), which said it was “gravely concerned by the alleged extrajudicial killing of two people accused of blasphemy.”
“This pattern of violence in cases of blasphemy, in which law enforcement personnel are allegedly involved, is an alarming trend,” it said in a statement. HRCP asked the government to conduct an independent inquiry to ascertain who was responsible for Nawaz’s death and ensure those responsible for it were punished.
The killing of Nawaz came a day after Islamists in a nearby city, Umerkot, staged a protest demanding his arrest and burned his clinic.
The latest killing comes a week after an officer opened fire inside a police station in the south-western city of Quetta, fatally wounding another suspect held on accusations of blasphemy.
The man had been arrested last Wednesday after officers rescued him from an enraged mob that claimed he had insulted Muhammad. He was killed by a police officer, who was then arrested.
However, the tribe and the family of the killed man said they forgave the officer and that the man had hurt the sentiments of Muslims by insulting Muhammad.
Though killings of blasphemy suspects by mobs are common, such killings by police are rare in Pakistan, where accusations of blasphemy – sometimes even just rumours – often spark rioting and rampage by mobs that can escalate into killings.
Under Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death – though authorities have yet to carry out a death sentence for blasphemy.
Pakistan has witnessed a surge in attacks on blasphemy suspects in recent years.
In June, a mob broke into a police station in the north-western town of Madyan, snatched a detainee who was a tourist, and then killed him over allegations that he had desecrated Islam’s holy book.
Last year, a mob in Punjab province attacked churches and homes of Christians after claiming they saw a local Christian and his friend desecrating pages from a Qur’an. The attack in the district of Jaranwala drew nationwide condemnation, but Christians say the men linked to the violence are yet to be put on trial.