The Pakistani government has accused police of staging the killing of a doctor accused of blasphemy, marking a rare instance of the government directly implicating security forces in an extrajudicial killing, CNN reports.
Dr. Shah Nawaz, from Sindh province, was taken into police custody last week in Mirpur Khas after a mob in Umerkot accused him of insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and sharing blasphemous content online. The mob also set fire to Nawaz’s clinic.
Despite assurances of a fair trial, Nawaz was found dead days later. Police initially claimed he was killed in a shootout with armed men, but a government investigation has now revealed the truth.
Provincial Interior Minister Ziaul Hassan, in a press conference in Karachi, announced that the probe concluded Nawaz was killed in a staged “fake encounter” orchestrated by security forces. There was no shootout, Hassan confirmed, and Nawaz’s family will be able to file murder charges against the responsible officers.
Nawaz’s family, who had previously alleged an extrajudicial killing, welcomed the government’s confirmation. Nawaz’s father, Mohammad Saleh, demanded justice under Sharia law, calling for the police officers involved to be killed in the same manner as his son.
“We have only one demand: Those police officers who staged the killing of my son… must also be killed in the same manner,” Saleh stated.
Nawaz’s case comes just weeks after another incident where a police officer shot and killed Syed Khan, a suspect accused of blasphemy, inside a police station in Quetta. While the officer was initially arrested, Khan’s family later pardoned him.
