MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There are rare and remarkable protests happening in Pakistan right now. Thousands are marching to demand justice for a doctor accused of insulting Islam and then killed in police custody. NPR's Diaa Hadid reports.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #1: (Chanting in non-English language).
DIAA HADID, BYLINE: Men and women march in their thousands. They chant, stop extremism. Stop killing people.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #1: (Chanting in non-English language).
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
HADID: They've turned up for Shah Nawaz Kumbhar (ph). He was accused of insulting Islam on social media. Mobs demanded his death, riding through his hometown of Umerkot in the southern province of Sindh.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Shouting in non-English language).
HADID: Kumbhar fled town, but police apprehended him last Wednesday. Hours later, he was killed in custody. Police say it was an accident. Vigilantes then seized his body and burnt it, denying him a Muslim burial.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Shouting in non-English language).
HADID: They tossed rose petals on police officers who they celebrated for killing Kumbhar.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #2: (Chanting in non-English language).
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
HADID: All this happens regularly in Pakistan, where blasphemy is a crime. But vigilantes, including police, often kill those even rumored to have insulted Islam. But what happened next hasn't happened in Pakistan for decades.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in non-English language).
HADID: People pushed back.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in non-English language).
HADID: Sufis surrounded the plot where Kumbhar was meant to be buried. They sung about divine love at the heart of Islam, a rebuke to the extremists. People protested, facing a mosque run by a known extremist. Then thousands protested Kumbhar's death in his hometown. Taj Rind was an organizer.
TAJ RIND: (Through interpreter) What should I do? Shall we leave our society to extremists and our people are being killed, and then we receive dead bodies, and we remain silent because tomorrow will be the target? Because of silence, such incidents will remain continued.
HADID: He says, "we can't stay silent, otherwise extremists will keep killing." He says, "maybe tomorrow it will be my turn."
Diaa Hadid, NPR News, Mumbai.
(SOUNDBITE OF WISHARD'S "NIGHT LIGHT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
