A Pakistani policeman shoots and kills a blasphemy suspect held at a police station

QUETTA, Pakistan -- A policeman opened fire inside a police station in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Thursday, killing a suspect held on accusations of blasphemy, a local official said.

The slain man was identified as Syed Khan. Police said he had been arrested the day before, after officers snatched him from an enraged mob that claimed he had insulted Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

According to police official Mohammad Khurram, the officer involved in the fatal shooting has been arrested. Khurram did not provide further details.

Killings of suspects while in police custody are rare in Pakistan, where accusations of blasphemy — sometimes even just rumors — are common and often spark rioting and rampage by mobs that can escalate into lynching and killings.

Under Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death — though authorities have yet to carry out a death sentences for blasphemy.

In the case of Khan, the man killed on Thursday, local residents claimed he had used derogatory remarks against the prophet and went after him. After he was arrested, the mob surrounded the station, demanding police hand Khan back to them so they could kill him.

At one point, a man hurled a grenade at the station on Wednesday while a group of Islamists briefly blocked a key road in the city, demanding punishment for Khan. The crowd dispersed later in the day after officials managed to calm them down.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in attacks on blasphemy suspects in recent years.

In June, a mob broke into a police station in the northwestern town of Madyan, snatched a man who was held there and then lynched him over allegations that he had desecrated Islam’s holy book, the Quran. The attackers also torched the station and burned police vehicles parked there. The slain man was a tourist staying at a hotel in town when the locals turned on him and accused him of blasphemy.

Last year, a mob in the eastern Punjab province attacked churches and homes of Christians after claiming they saw a local Christian and his friend desecrating pages from a Quran. The attack in the district of Jaranwala drew nationwide condemnation, but Christians say the men linked to the violence are yet to be put on trial.

A policeman in 2011 killed a former governor of Punjab province after accusing him of blasphemy. That officer, Mumtaz Qadri, was later sentenced to death and hanged. However, support for him grew after his hanging, with tens of thousands attending his funeral in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Many in Punjab still today considered him a martyr.

Quetta, a conservative city in southwestern Pakistan is also the capital of the restive Balochistan province, where militant groups stage near daily attacks and where separatists have waged a decadeslong insurgency against the government in Islamabad.