KARACHI, Pakistan — Nationwide protests at the police killing of a young ethnic Pashtun man in Pakistan’s largest city have shone a spotlight on allegations of persecution by the authorities against refugees from the country’s conflict-ridden northwest. The country’s Supreme Court launched an inquiry on Jan. 19 into the death of 27-year-old aspiring fashion model Naqibullah Mehsud. He was one of four men killed six days earlier in what police initially said was a shoot-out with suspected militants. The Supreme Court gave a three-day deadline to the police to arrest former Malir senior superintendent of police (SSP) Rao Anwar. The police team that killed Mehsud was under the command of senior superintendent Anwar, who has been suspended since Jan. 20 on the recommendation of a police inquiry committee. The committee was set up after Mehsud’s father, Muhammad Khan Mehsud, who denies his son had any militant links, filed a kidnapping and killing complaint against him. Anwar said he had done nothing wrong and said the investigation into his officers’ actions could allow the Taliban to regain a foothold in ethnic Pashtun parts of the city. “I had no knowledge of Naqibullah Mehsud. My staff told me that he is a militant with a criminal history,” he said. Police data from 2011 shows that in the seven years Anwar has been in charge of Karachi’s Malir district, which has a large Pashtun population, at least 450 people have been killed in 200 clashes with police that involved weapons. The data does not give details of the circumstances of the shootings. A senior police official, who asked not to be identified, said that the majority of those killed were ethnic Pashtuns. Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun borderlands have been a hotbed of militancy in recent decades. Pakistani police refer to any armed clash with suspects as an “encounter”. Some human rights activists and families of victims have for years alleged that such incidents are often staged to cover up extrajudicial killings. Anwar said that armed operations to kill suspects were official police policy in Sindh Province, of which Karachi is the capital, to combat the threat from militants. “There was an on-going official policy ... for carrying out encounters to take out criminals and I have broken no law,” he said. The provincial police chief denied there was such a policy. “I don’t need to respond to irresponsible allegations,” Inspector General of Sindh police Allah Dino Khawaja said in a brief text message in reply to Reuters’ questions. “He has to appear before the investigation to defend and prove his claims.” Sindh police said in a statement on Jan. 20 it had launched an inquiry “to ascertain the facts regarding the police encounter in which Naqibullah Mehsud was killed”. Some campaigners among the sprawling city’s Pashtun community say the story is not unusual. But it is the first to receive nationwide attention — in part because Mehsud, known as Naqib, does not fit the image of the militant from Pakistan’s lawless northern heartlands. “He had a passion for wearing good clothes ... even in the picture of his body circulating on social media, he is seen wearing good clothes,” his cousin Noor Rehman said, while holding back tears. Another senior police officer said no evidence linking Naqib to militancy had been found. — Reuters