Pakistan: Doctor accused of blasphemy was killed in fake encounter by police, says government

Pakistan 's government on Thursday said that the doctor who was in custody on blasphemy accusations was killed by the police in a fake encounter.

Ziaul Hassan, a provincial minister, accused the officers of lying about the details of his death, who claimed that he died in a shootout between police and armed men.

This is the first time that the security forces have been accused of what the doctor's family and rights groups have described as constituting an extrajudicial killing perpetrated by the police.

Shah Nawaz , the doctor from southern Sindh province, had turned himself last week in the Mirpur Khas district after receiving assurances that he would have an opportunity to prove his innocence.

Previously in Umerkot, a mob demanded his arrest claiming he insulted Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and shared blasphemous content on social media. The mob also set ablaze Nawaz’s clinic.

According to 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.

At a press conference in Karachi, Hasan told reporters that there was no shootout with armed men as police had claimed 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.

Mob violence in Pakistan can be ignited by accusations and sometimes even mere rumores of blasphemy. Though mob killings of blasphemy suspects are common, extrajudicial killings by police are relatively rare.

According to Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, those 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.

Nawaz’s father called for his son's killers to face justice under the principle of retribution under Sharia, or Islamic law.

“We have only one demand: those police officers who staged the killing of my son ... must also be killed in the same manner,” said Nawaz's father, Mohammad Saleh.

Saleh, over a telephonic conversation, told news agency the Associated Press that he was grateful for all the support that the family was given and to all those who condemned extremist clerics who had enraged the mob with calls for his son to be killed.

“Those who killed my son should be punished quickly so that others learn a lesson and not indulge in extrajudicial killings in the future,” said Nawaz's mother, Rehmat Kunbar.

She said that even though her son can not return to her, wants to save the children of other parents from the hands of the extremists.

Nawaz's killing marks the second case of an extra-judicial killing by police this month in Pakistan.

A week earlier, Syed Khan, a suspect held due to blasphemy accusations, was fatally wounded by an officer who opened fire inside the police station in the southwestern city of Quetta.

Khan was arrested after he was rescued by officers from an enraged mob claiming that he had insulted Islam’s prophet. However, he too, faced the same fate as Nawaz, as he was killed by a police officer Mohammad Khurram. Khurram was later arrested even though the tribe and the family of the slain man later said they had forgiven the officer.