Police fatally shoot a blasphemy suspect in Pakistan in 2nd such killing in a week

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Police in southern Pakistan shot dead a blasphemy suspect during an alleged shootout with armed men, officials said Thursday, the second such apparent extra-judicial killing in a week, drawing strong condemnation from human rights groups.

Police identified the slain man as Shah Nawaz, a medical doctor in the Umerkot district in the 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.

Local police chief Niaz Khoso insisted that 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 the southern Sindh province.

He said instead of stopping, the men opened fire and tried to flee, prompting police to return fire.

He said one of the suspects fled on the motorcycle, while the other was killed.

Khoso claimed that it was only after the shootout that officers learned that the slain man was the doctor being sought by them for the alleged blasphemy.

The killing of Nawaz drew strong condemnation from the country’s independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan or HRCH, 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 also 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 in Mirpur Khas came a day after Islamists in a nearby city, Umerkot, staged a protest, demanding his