In 2004, Fazal Abbas, a Pakistani “faith healer and a leader of [a local] minority Shia community in the small city of Sialkot,” was accused of blasphemy. The nature of the accusation is unknown, except that it involved an alleged insult to the Prophet Muhammad. After complaints were made to the police by a conservative religious group, Fazal fled for Denmark.

“He returned [to Pakistan] recently with the conviction that he would prove his innocence in court and had been granted bail by a local judge.” - Azhar Hussain, Fazal’s cousin

Thirteen years later, he returned to Pakistan in an attempt to clear his name. In April of 2017, however, three women showed up at his home, asking if he would “perform a spiritual ritual.” He apparently obliged, but it was reportedly during this “ritual” that one of the women shot him fatally. 

A police investigation found that the women, all sisters, had been encouraged to kill Fazal by an imam who had made some of the initial complaints against him in 2004. The women told police that they would have killed him before he left for Denmark, but they were "too young" to do so then.