Three women confess to killing blasphemy suspect in Sialkot
The suspects have been handed over to the police on a 14-day judicial remand.
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Three young women have confessed to killing a man accused of blasphemy, police said, after he was gunned down at home.
Fazal Abbas, who was in his fifties had fled Pakistan in 2004 after being charged with committing blasphemy, but returned earlier this year to fight the case and was granted bail, police official Saeed Hanjra told.
He was at home in the Sialkot district of Punjab province, when the three women, all in their twenties, arrived at the house, according to the victim’s uncle Azhar Hussain Shamsi. He said one of the women then launched the attack.
"When Fazal was sitting with me she withdrew to the washroom to get her gun from her purse and on her return shot him from close range," said Shamsi.
A second local police official Muhammad Farooq confirmed the incident and said the women had confessed.
Sources told that the suspects have been handed over to the police on a 14-day judicial remand.
The latest killing came in the wake of a government drive to prosecute blasphemy, a hugely sensitive charge in Pakistan. Unproven allegations have led to dozens of mob attacks or murders since 1990, though it is rare for women to carry out such attacks.
