On Wednesday, Tahir Ahmad Naseem, accused of blasphemy, was shot six times amid his hearing in a northwestern Pakistani district court in the city of Peshawar, police official Ijaz Ahmed told Al Jazeera.
Naseem was under police custody since 2018 for an accusation of committing blasphemy by claiming to be a prophet.
Police official Ahmed said: “The culprit accepts responsibility for killing him, and says that he killed him for having committed blasphemy,”
“[The suspect] has been arrested from the scene,” he added.
Anyone claiming to be a prophet is a violation of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, some of which could lead to death penalties.
Naseem was convicted of violating the Pakistani penal code sections 295-A, 295-B, and 295-C. Section 295-C carries a mandatory death penalty.
Although, there have been no executions under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, there has been a surge in extrajudicial murders and mob violence over recent years.
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