The alleged gunman was identified by the authorities as Khalid; it’s unclear how he brought a gun into the courtroom
A man accused of blasphemy in Pakistan was shot dead in court during his trial in the northern city of Peshawar.
He had faced charges of allegedly claiming to be a prophet.
Blasphemy is legally punishable by death. The state has not executed anyone, but the allegations can often lead to violent attacks.
The victim, Tahir Ahmad Naseem, was accused of blasphemy in 2018 by a teenager.
He was killed in a trial hearing on Wednesday morning. The video shared on social media shows that his body collapsed on the court seats.
Her attacker was arrested at the scene. Another video shows him handcuffed, angrily shouting that his victim was an “enemy of Islam.”
Mr. Naseem was first accused of blasphemy by Awais Malik, a madrassa student from Peshawar. Naseem had struck up an online conversation with him while living in the United States.
Malik told the BBC that he had later met Naseem at a shopping center in Peshawar to discuss his views on religion, after which he presented a case against him to police.
He said he had not been present in court and was not aware of the shooting. The suspect arrested for the murder has been named as Khalid. It is unclear how he managed to bring a weapon to court facilities.
The victim was photographed shortly after he was shot dead.
Naseem was born into the persecuted sect of Ahmadi, according to a community spokesperson. But he added that he had left the sect and claimed to be a prophet.
The community leader suggested that Mr. Naseem had been mentally ill: He had uploaded videos to YouTube claiming to be a messiah.
Human rights groups say Pakistan’s hard-line blasphemy laws disproportionately attack minority communities and encourage vigilante attacks. Dozens of people accused of being blasphemous have been killed by angry or militant crowds in recent years.
In an unrelated development, a hashtag campaign accusing a user of blasphemy has been a trend on Twitter in the country.
But other users, concerned about the individual’s safety, have been actively trying to drown out the allegations, using a separate hashtag – # btsarmypakistan – a reference to fans of the extremely popular Korean pop group BTS.
One of those involved in the counter-trend told the BBC that it was an attempt to “resist the right-wing trolls who took over the Internet and possibly killed someone in the process.”
BTS-related hashtags were also used during the recent Black Lives Matter protests in the United States to stifle racist online counter-campaigns.
