Karachi: On Thursday (September 19), blasphemy suspect Dr Shahnawaz Kanbhar was killed in Mirpurkhas, a district in Pakistan’s Sindh, in what some, including his family, allege was an extrajudicial killing by the police.
This was the second killing of a blasphemy-accused in Pakistan in nine days.
Earlier, on September 12, 52-year-old Abdul Ali, a hotel owner, was accused of blasphemy and was killed in police custody by a police officer in Quetta, Balochistan.
Kanbhar, a doctor at Umarkot Hospital, was not in the city when allegations of blasphemy surfaced against him on September 17. He was accused of posting blasphemous content on Facebook.
The post went viral and religious groups in Umarkot protested violently, demanding his arrest.
The accused denied the allegations, claiming that his old Facebook account had been hacked. He handed over his phone to the police and the Federal Investigation Agency, urging in a video message for a thorough investigation, stating, “Everything will be cleared.”
But religious groups continued to demand severe punishment against him.
Asif Baloch, a police officer in Umarkot, said that an FIR was registered against Kanbhar under section 295C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which prohibits insults to the sacred name of the Prophet Muhammad.
The police traced Kanbhar’s location first to Hyderabad, then to Jamshoro and finally to Karachi.
“Unfortunately, we could not arrest him because he was not present there,” Baloch said.
Although one source claimed that Kanbhar had been arrested and then killed by the Mirpurkhas police, the police firmly denied this allegation.
Tensions escalated when Mirpurkhas police claimed that Kanbhar had been killed in a shootout at the Sindhri village in Mirpurkhas.
When contacted, Mirpurkhas police officer Asad Chaudhry explained that his policemen were on patrol when two men on a motorbike failed to stop when asked to and then opened fire on the police.
“Later, we discovered that one of them was [Kanbhar],” he said.
According to the FIR filed by Mirpurkhas police, Kanbhar and his companion allegedly opened fire on officers following which they returned fire, but that Kanbhar was ultimately killed by gunshots fired by companion.
However, the police did not arrest Kanbhar’s friend, claiming that he fled into the jungle.
The police registered FIRs against both Kanbhar and his companion on charges of attempted murder under section 324 of the PPC.
After Kanbhar’s alleged extrajudicial killing, people expressed their anger and raised questions around the police’s conduct; yet many refrained from speaking to the media for fear of religious extremism.
Religious extremists burnt his dead body
Religious locals burned Kanbhar’s body. Police officer Baloch stated that his mother struggled to find a place to bury him. Ultimately, his body was buried in a jungle, but locals later burned it.
Another source noted that such incidents are rare; even in the Quetta case, the accused’s body was not burned.
In the Umarkot case, the burning of Kanbhar’s body has raised eyebrows and questions of whether the police were trying to have evidence erased the event of an investigation into his death.
Some reports have also claimed that Kanbhar was mentally unstable.
People condemn police action, while religious groups shower flowers on them
People have strongly condemned the police’s conduct following Kanbhar’s killing. In response, the Sindh government has formed a committee led by three senior policemen to investigate the incident.
However, many people do not trust this committee because it is headed by the police.
Meanwhile, two police officers from Mirpurkhas have been suspended.
Pakistan People’s Party MP Pir Ameer Ali Shah Jeelani (centre) praising Jiskani for Kanbhar’s killing. Photo: Screenshot from video.
On the other hand, religious groups praised Mirpurkhas police officer and deputy inspector general Javed Soonharo Jiskani, who was garlanded with flowers and referred to as a ‘ghazi’, an honorific title that is often used to refer to a Muslim warrior who fights against non-Muslims.
Pakistan People’s Party MP Pir Ameer Ali Shah Jeelani expressed appreciation for Jiskani and openly supported Kanbhar’s killing.
After Kanbhar’s killing, Sindh’s education minister Sardar Ali Shah stated that no one should be killed over allegations of blasphemy.
Umarkot has a Hindu majority, and people have begun posting disclaimers on social media to try and pre-empt attempts to hack their Facebook accounts. They asked that if blasphemous content is posted from their accounts, it is not attributed to them.
Many people, including this reporter, are worried about what might happen if such incidents were to happen to them.
“The police, whose primary responsibility is to protect the accused and present them in court, are instead killing those who seek their protection,” the education minister said.
Kanbhar’s daughter said in a statement that her father was murdered by Jiskani, adding that he ought to be punished along with Umarkot’s senior superintendent of police as well as Sindhri village’s station house officer.
A source claimed that a judicial magistrate in Quetta even kissed the hands of the police officer who killed the blasphemy suspect.
Blasphemy cases in Pakistan
Blasphemy cases in Pakistan have increased in recent years.
According to the Centre for Social Justice, 243 blasphemy cases have been reported so far in 2024 and seven people have died in extrajudicial killings – five in Punjab, one in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one in Balochistan and one in Sindh.
