Lynching season
Rashed Rahman
A mentally challenged middle-aged man in Tulamba, a Khanewal village, is the latest victim of mob vigilantism on allegations of blasphemy. His brother revealed that the victim, Mushtaq Rajput, had mental health problems for the past 17-18 years. He had been living with another brother in Karachi until January 2022 and had returned to the village recently. He also remained hospitalised for years but could not recover. His wife divorced him on these grounds despite the couple sharing three children. On February 12, 2022, he went to buy cigarettes but did not return until evening, the brother said. The family later learnt of his death on allegations of blasphemy, despite the area residents being aware of his mental health issues.
The facts of the incident as reported appear to be that Mohammad Ramzan, the complainant in the blasphemy case police claim was registered on February 13, 2022, a day after the lynching, said two men, Azhar Abbas and Mukhtiar Hussain, rushed to Shah Muqeem mosque on seeing smoke being emitted and discovered an unidentified person setting fire to the Holy Quran. A crowd gathered and demanded action against the alleged blasphemer. The police team that rushed to the spot and took the accused into custody could not protect him from the hundreds of people gathered there. They snatched him from the police, clubbed and stoned him before tying him to a tree and stoning him to death despite his cries of innocence. The paltry police contingent remained passive onlookers throughout this danse macabre. As usual, heavy police reinforcements requested arrived too late to prevent the tragedy. The victim’s brother revealed his body was missing some fingers, suggesting the grisly thought that they were cut off after he died (Cf. allegations of genital mutilation in the Sialkot lynching).
Prime Minister Imran Khan fulminated ‘zero tolerance’ for such mob vigilantism and directed the authorities (presumably the Punjab government of his ‘Wasim Akram’) to take action against the policemen who ‘failed in their duty’. The result is that the police claims to have conducted 120 raids, netting 85 suspects, including 15 ‘main’ suspects. It also claims to have registered an FIR for alleged blasphemy (against the dead victim?) under Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) Section 295-B and another related to the lynching under various PPC Sections and the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
A day after this Khanewal atrocity, on February 13, 2022, a similar incident occurred in Faisalabad’s Tandlianwala area. A violent mob attacked and injured a Shia man for allegedly burning pages of the Holy Quran. In this instance however, police mercifully rescued him from the mob and shifted him to some unknown location for safety. The few details available suggest a vigilante mob carrying clubs, bricks and other hard objects surrounded the accused’s house and attacked him. Fortunately, not only was he rescued and spirited away, the police also transported his family to another area to keep them out of harm’s way.
Lest anyone be deluded into thinking these are stray incidents, a reminder may be in order. On November 21, 2022, a police station was vandalised and set on fire in an unsuccessful attempt to wrest a blasphemy accused from police custody by a violent mob in Charsadda area, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On December 3, 2021, a Sri Lankan factory manager was beaten and burnt to death allegedly for blasphemy in Sialkot, Punjab. Now the Mian Channu, Khanewal, and Faisalabad incidents coming close on the heels of the Sialkot brutality indicate all is not well in our society. This chain of incidents suggests the chickens of Ziaul Haq’s tweaking the blasphemy laws are coming home to roost, fuelled by the climate of religious fanaticism that has society in its unrelenting grip ever since.
The usual condemnatory fulminations from ministers and others have been trotted out, but some modicum of deeper wisdom can be found in the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s (HRCP’s) statement that the ruthlessness with which the mob in Khanewal lynched its hapless victim, including wresting him away from police custody, illustrates all too well that the (business of) allegations of blasphemy have long gone beyond (simply) a law and order problem. HRCP says it is no longer enough to simply reiterate the government’s (non-visible) ‘zero tolerance’ claim when its own minister brushed aside a similar incident as a case of ‘high emotions’ (implying some justification for barbarity?). HRCP goes on to point out that the state has consistently (at least since 1977) pandered to political and religious groups that have never had any qualms about encouraging religious fanaticism. It notes with grave concern the seeming uptick in mob vigilantism and warns that if the government (state?) does not push back against fanaticism on all fronts, ordinary citizens (victims of blasphemy accusations in particular) will continue to pay the (high) price.
Since Ziaul Haq’s many ‘blessings’ left behind long after he met his Maker, the religious fanatics have increasingly held sway over the public space. Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer fell victim to just such a fanatic (who was his bodyguard!) for standing up for a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, falsely accused of blasphemy. Many other such crimes can be mentioned in this regard. The record of atrocities is long and growing. Perhaps it is time to return to the blasphemy laws to enquire whether they are in consonance with the Quran, Sunnah, and example of the Prophet (PBUH). Perish the thought of course that our law enforcement and justice system is up to the task of punishing vigilantes and ensuring true justice prevails. State and society will have to come together to objectively critique the fallout in practice of making the blasphemy laws more stringent, including the death penalty, leading arguably to vigilante mobs, often riled up by local clerics, to take the law into their own hands, an indictment in action of our justice system, in which so little hope still resides.
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