A Pakistani policeman shot dead a man in custody held on blasphemy charges in Quetta. Now, some Pakistanis are applauding the police personnel, with state lawyers even promising him protection from charges and his father being garlanded by TLP members.
Abdul Ali had been taken into custody a week ago and transferred to the police station to be protected from an angry mob that was allegedly bent on lynching him.
Activists and citizens don’t know what is worse — the fact that an innocent man was killed by a policeman who first pretended to be his relative, his glorification as a hero, or that the victim was even denied a proper burial after an inhuman death.
Following the killing , JUI-F members obstructed the victim’s family from burying him in his hometown of Pishin, about 50 kilometers from Quetta. The family was forced to flee the graveyard with the body to avoid confrontation.
“We just broke a record in hitting new lows in a single day. JUI F’s terr0rists have reached the graveyard to prevent burial of the person k!lled for ‘blasphemy’. The relatives of the victim have escaped while carrying the dead body on their shoulders,” author Umair Khan wrote on X.
Support from all over
The situation escalated after the Kharotabad police station in Quetta was attacked with a grenade amid a violent protest by the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) mob that was demanding the police to release Ali. According to the official complaint, Ali had made objectionable comments about the Prophet and a recorded phone conversation had later gone viral on social media. He was then arrested by the local police.
The protesters, affiliated mostly with the TLP and other religious groups, disrupted traffic on the western bypass by setting tyres ablaze and held rallies across various areas of Quetta, the provincial capital. In their attempt to force the police to surrender the suspect, they even threw a hand grenade at the Kharotabad police station, which exploded outside it. the station, Dawn reported. Visuals on social media show an angry mob of hundreds trying to break into the police station and attacking the barricades.
Following this, Ali was sent to another police station where a policeman, Syed Khan Sarhadi, who was apparently part of Pakistan’s anti-terrorism squad earlier, entered the police station, masquerading as a relative and shot the man dead. He has been charged with murder but for conservatives in Pakistan, he’s a hero. Visuals emerged showing TLP members garlanding the father of the policeman and congratulating him after the killing.
Ironically, even Pakistani politicians have come out in support of the policeman and have even offered legal support.
During a Senate meeting Thursday, JUI-P Senator Abdul Shakoor Khan expressed his support for the police officer involved in the shooting of a blasphemy suspect and stated that he would cover all legal expenses for the officer, emphasising his dissatisfaction with the legal system rather than the officer’s actions, Dawn reported.
“The police officer acted because he lost faith in the legal system,” Senator Khan argued.
Former MPA of the Balochistan Assembly and ex-adviser to the Chief Minister, Bushra Rind also expressed support for the policeman, offering him her salutations.
The incident has sparked widespread condemnation and concern.
LUMS professor and activist Taimur Rahman criticised the situation on X, pointing out Pakistan’s troubling reputation for religious extremism and persecution.
“Pakistan is leading the world in one thing. Religious extremism and persecution”, he said while journalist Sabahat Zakariya noted that “‘Anti-terrorism’ will stay a sham till the state is rebuilt on secular principles.”
Anthropologist Nida Kirmani noted that Ali’s death is part of a growing pattern of violence fueled by religious fervour, suggesting that the increasing religiously-driven hatred in Balochistan is linked to the broader political and social upheavals in the region, where movements against state oppression are gaining momentum.
Also read: Pakistani schools training students to lynch Ahmadis
Blasphemy killings in Pakistan
Blasphemy is punishable by law in Pakistan, though the state has never carried out an execution for this offence. Instead, many individuals accused of blasphemy have been lynched by enraged mobs.
In May this year, a TLP mob lynched a Christian man in Sargodha over blasphemy. Following the incident, authorities arrested 26 people and booked over 400 for mob violence. In June, a mob lynched a man detained for alleged Quran desecration inside the Madyan police station in Swat. The mob went on to set the suspect’s body, the police station, and a police vehicle on fire.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
Any country that does not value human rights will go to ruins. Pakistan is the best textbook example for everyone to learn and avoid.