Mob burns body of blasphemy accused, prevents family from carrying out burial

KARACHI: A mob has burnt the corpse of a doctor who was accused of blasphemy and later killed by a policeman in Pakistan's Sindh province, preventing the family from carrying out his burial. Dr Shahnawaz Kanbar was killed in a shootout with police in Sindh province amidst allegations of blasphemy that prompted him to flee near Mirpurkhas, approximately 250 km northeast of Karachi on Wednesday night.
According to police, the doctor was shot dead after he refused to surrender and tried to escape from being arrested.
On Thursday evening Kanbar's body was handed over to his family for burial. The slain man is survived by three sons, a daughter, and his widow.
"The family had brought the body to their native village, Janhero, for burial but a mob gathered there demanding the corpse be handed over to them," local police officer Shakoor Rasheed said.
The family members escaped for their lives without carrying out the burial as the mob chased them out, Rasheed said, adding that
The mob found the body in one of the cars left behind and set it on fire, he added.
Earlier, the police had booked Kanbar in Umerkot town under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code for allegedly posting 'blasphemous content' on Facebook.
The blasphemy case was registered against him by a cleric Sabir Soomro of a local mosque in Umerkot earlier this week after the doctor had escaped from his clinic where a mob had gathered to catch him.
SHO Niaz Khoso in Sindhi, where the accused was killed, confirmed the killing of the suspect, saying the doctor had, along with his accomplices, opened fire at the police.
The doctor was shot dead in retaliatory action while his alleged accomplice escaped from the spot, Khoso claimed.
He had posted a video of himself from a hotel claiming that his account had been hacked and he could not even imagine sharing blasphemous content.