(AP) – The Pakistani government said Thursday that police had orchestrated the murder of a doctor who was in custody after being accused of blasphemy. Officers lied about the circumstances of his death, claiming he had died in a shootout between police and gunmen, a provincial minister said.
It is the first time that the government has accused security forces of what, according to the doctor’s family and human rights groups, was an extrajudicial execution carried out by the Police.
The doctor, Shah Nawaz, from the southern province of Sindh, had surrendered to police last week in Mirpur Khas district, after receiving assurances that he would be given the opportunity to prove his innocence.
Days earlier, in the city of Umerkot, a mob claimed that he had insulted the Prophet Muhammad and shared blasphemous content on social media, and demanded his arrest. The mob also burned Nawaz’s clinic.
According to the province’s Interior Minister, Ziaul Hassan, a government investigation concluded that Nawaz died shortly after surrendering to authorities in what was a “fake encounter” organized by security forces.
There was no shootout with gunmen, as the police had claimed, Hassan told reporters at a news conference in the southern port city of Karachi, adding that Nawaz’s family may press murder charges against the police officers who accused him. they killed
Hours after Nawaz was fatally shot and his body was handed over to his family, a mob snatched it from the father and burned it.
Hassan’s statement backed up allegations made by Nawaz’s family earlier this week.
Accusations of blasphemy, sometimes even simple rumours, can trigger unrest and unrest in Pakistan. Although murders of blasphemy suspects at the hands of mobs are frequent, extrajudicial executions at the hands of the Police are rare.
Under Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy legislation, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death, although authorities have not yet carried out any death sentences for blasphemy.
Nawaz’s father thanked the government for standing by the family and demanded that his son’s killers face justice under the “eye for an eye” concept of Sharia, or Islamic law.
“We only have one request: the police officers who staged the murder of my son (…) must also die in the same way,” declared Nawaz’s father, Mohammad Saleh.
Saleh told The Associated Press by telephone that he was grateful for all the support received by the family and for all those who condemned the extremist clerics who had angered the crowd with calls to kill his son.
“Those who killed my son must be punished quickly so that others learn their lesson and do not commit extrajudicial killings in the future,” said Rehmat Kunbar, Nawaz’s mother.
She added that her son can no longer return to her, but that she wants to save other parents’ children from the hands of extremists.
Nawaz’s death was the second case of extrajudicial execution by police this month in Pakistan.
A week earlier, an officer opened fire inside a police station in the southwestern city of Quetta, fatally wounding Syed Khan, a suspect detained on blasphemy charges.
Khan was detained after officers rescued him from an angry mob who claimed he had insulted the prophet of Islam. But he was murdered by a police officer, Mohammad Khurram, who was quickly arrested. However, the tribe and the slain man’s family later said they had forgiven the officer.
