KARACHI, Pakistan — 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 condemnation from human rights groups.
Police identified the slain man as Shah Nawaz, a 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 said 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. One of the suspects fled on the motorcycle, while the other was killed, he said.
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.
Videos circulating on social media showed local clerics throwing rose petals at police and praising officers for killing the blasphemy suspect. There was no immediate clarification from the Sindh government about the circumstances in which the suspect was killed.
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.
