The United States urged Pakistan to take action on the murder of a US national.
Isamabad:
The United States urged Pakistan on Thursday to take action on the murder of a U.S. national in a crowded courtroom as he stood on trial for blasphemy.
Tahir Ahmed Naseem was shot several times at close range as he appeared in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Wednesday.
“We urge Pakistan to take immediate action and pursue reforms that will prevent such a shameful tragedy from happening again,” the US State Department said in a tweet.
As Naseem’s arraignment began in front of the judge, a young man in the room pulled out a handgun and shot him in the head, officials and witnesses said. The young man was arrested on the spot.
On Thursday, supporters of a radical Islamist group staged a protest rally in Peshawar to demand the release of the suspected gunman, claiming he had defended his religion.
The aftermath of the murder, captured on video and shared on social media, showed Naseem slumped in a chair next to the judge’s bench, as other chained prisoners, some with bloody clothes, were taken from the room .
“The young man who shot him had no remorse and said he had seen the Prophet Muhammad in a dream the night before,” Latif Afridi, who heads the Peshawar High Court Bar, told Reuters .
Afridi asked how the man managed to get a gun into the courthouse given that all visitors are carefully vetted at three different locations.
“It is likely that someone who can pass without being checked, perhaps a police officer or a lawyer, handed the gun to the shooter after he entered,” he said.
According to the charge sheet against Naseem, seen by Reuters, the American was in contact with a student at an Islamic school in Pakistan on Facebook and told him he was a messiah sent by God.
Naseem later met the student in Peshawar, after which police arrested him and charged him with a number of crimes, including insulting the Prophet Muhammad, which can lead to the death penalty in Pakistan. .
