Pakistan suspends policemen applauded by locals for killing a blasphemy suspect

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani authorities on Friday suspended policemen who had opened fire and killed a blasphemy suspect in the country's south earlier this week, only to be applauded and showered with rose petals by local residents after the killing.

The death of Shah Nawaz — a doctor in Sindh province who went into hiding after being accused of insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and sharing blasphemous content on social media — was the second such apparent extra-judicial killing by police in a week, drawing condemnation from human rights groups.

The local police chief, Niaz Khoso, said Nawaz was killed unintentionally when officers in the city of Mirpur Khas signaled for two men on a motorcycle to stop on Wednesday night Instead of stopping, the men opened fire and tried to flee, prompting police to shoot.

One of the suspects fled on the motorcycle, while the other, Nawaz, who had gone into hiding two days earlier, was killed.

Subsequently, videos on social media showed people throwing rose petals and handing a bouquet of flowers to the police officers said to have been involved in the shooting. In another video, purportedly filmed at their police station, officers wore garlands of flowers around their necks and posed for photographs.

Sindh Home Minister Zia Ul Hassan suspended the officers, including Deputy Inspector General Javaid Jiskani who appears in both videos, said the minister's spokesperson Sohail Jokhio.

Also suspended was senior police officer Choudhary Asad who previously said the shooting incident had no connection to the blasphemy case and that police only realized who Nawaz was after his body was taken for a postmortem.

Nawaz's family members allege they were later attacked by a mob that snatched his body from them and burned it. Nawaz's killing in Mirpur Khas came a day after Islamists in a nearby city, Umerkot, staged a protest demanding his arrest. The mob also burned Nawaz’s clinic on Wednesday, officials said.

Doctors Wake Up Movement, a rights group for medical professionals and students in Pakistan, said Nawaz had saved lives as a doctor.

“But he got no opportunity to even present his case to court, killed by the police and his body was burnt by a mob,” the group said on the social media platform X.

Provincial police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon has ordered an investigation.

Though killings of blasphemy suspects by mobs are common, extra-judicial killings by police are rare in Pakistan, where accusations of blasphemy — sometimes even just rumors — can spark riots and mob rampages that can escalate into killings.

A week before Nawaz's killing, an officer opened fire inside a police station in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, fatally wounding Syed Khan, another suspect held on accusations of blasphemy.

Khan was arrested after officers rescued him from an enraged mob that claimed he had insulted Islam’s prophet. But he was killed by a police officer, Mohammad Khurram, who was quickly arrested. However, the tribe and the family of the slain man later said they pardoned the officer.

Under Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, anyone 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.