Pakistani minority Christians and civil society march during a protest against the murder of a Christian couple, in Karachi on November 6, 2014.
A Pakistani policeman used an axe to kill a man arrested on blasphemy allegations a day after a mob murdered a Christian couple accused of the same crime, officials said Thursday.
Tufail Haider, a 50-year-old from the minority Shiite sect of Islam, was arrested for allegedly making derogatory remarks about the companions of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and brought to the Civil Lines police station in the eastern city of Gujrat on Wednesday.
It was the second vigilante killing over blasphemy in Punjab province in two days, after a husband and wife were lynched and their bodies burned in a case that sparked widespread horror.
“Tufail was kept in the lock-up but he continued uttering derogatory remarks and hurled abuse at policemen. He looked like a malang (wandering preacher) and seemed mentally imbalanced,” duty officer Ali Raza told AFP.
“Assistant Sub-Inspector Faraz Naveed, 36, became very angry on hearing the derogatory remarks against the companions of the prophet and he killed the detainee with an axe in the lock-up.”
Naveed has been arrested and legal proceedings have been started against him, he added.
District Police Chief Rai Mohammad Ejaz confirmed the incident and said Naveed had brought Haider into his own room and locked the door before killing him.
Sectarian violence has been on the rise in Pakistan, with mainly Sunni extremists targeting the country’s minority Shiite community.
Around 1,000 Shiites have been killed in the past two years, a heavy toll on the community that makes up roughly 20 percent of the country’s 180 million population, most of whom are Muslim.
Source: Prothom Alo
