Pakistani police are responsible for killing a doctor held in a blasphemy claim, the government says

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s government said Thursday that police had orchestrated the killing of a doctor who was in custody after he was accused of blasphemy. Officers then lied about the circumstances of his death, claiming he was killed in a shootout between police and armed men, a provincial minister said.

The statement marks the first time the government has accused security forces of what the doctor’s family and rights groups have said amounted to extrajudicial killing carried out by police.

The doctor, Shah Nawaz, from the southern Sindh province, had given himself up to police last week in the district of Mirpur Khas, following assurances that he would be given a chance to prove his innocence.

Days earlier in the city of Umerkot, a mob claimed he insulted Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and shared blasphemous content on social media, and demanded his arrest. The mob also burned Nawaz’s clinic.

According to the provincial interior minister, Ziaul Hassan, a government probe concluded that Nawaz was killed shortly after he gave himself up to authorities in what was a staged “fake encounter” engineered by the security forces.

There was no shootout with armed men as police had claimed, Hassan told reporters at a news conference in the southern port city of Karachi, and added that Nawaz’s family will be able to file murder charges against police officers who killed him.

Hours after Nawaz was fatally shot and his body handed over to his family, a mob snatched it from Nawaz’s father and burned it.

Hassan’s statement backed up Nawaz’s family allegations earlier this week.

Accusations of blasphemy — sometimes even just rumors — can spark riots and mob rampages in Pakistan. Although killings of blasphemy suspects by mobs