EDITORIAL: Mere allegation of blasphemy in this country can lead to murder by vigilantes, even at the hands of law enforcers.
A few days ago, a blasphemy suspect, Dr Shah Nawaz Kunbhar, posted at the district headquarters hospital in Umerkot had handed himself to the police, but instead of fulfilling legal requirements, he was gunned down in custody, later proclaimed as an encounter killing. His body was set on fire by an enraged mob, his distraught family could bury him only in a remote place. This was the second case of extrajudicial killing within days.
A week earlier in Quetta, a suspect was under arrest when he was shot dead by an officer.
In the case of Dr Kunbhar, nonetheless, a police inquiry committee was formed to investigate the circumstances of his death. Its report was made public on Thursday, which found that “the whole episode was not handled seriously as per law and police rules; by the DIG and SSP Mirpurkhas and SSP Umerkot” showing a lack of command and “failure to take decision as enumerated in legal framework of the country.” Besides noting serious violations of procedure and rules by the police command, the committee report slammed “murder celebration” by the police and how they portrayed the killing as an encounter on various platforms, recommending strict departmental action against those involved.
Following submission of the inquiry report, Home Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar addressed a press conference to announce that he had ordered registration of an FIR against the officers responsible for the suspect’s killing. More importantly, he said, the Sindh government would pursue the case, if the victim’s family is reluctant to do that. All involved must be held to account and handed exemplary punishments.
The episode also calls for a collective introspection why unlike any other Muslim majority nation — with the exception of Afghanistan, of course — such incidents happen only in Pakistan. It does not take much to understand this phenomenon, though.
Lynch mobs, invariably instigated by local clerics are led by certain religious groups and parties to burnish their religious credentials; they have brutally killed dozens of people.
Countless others who somehow managed to survive remain languishing in jails, because the lawyers, afraid for their own lives, consider it too risky to plead their cases. Things have come to such a pass that even governments are not safe from this kind of trouble makers. Sadly, a religion of peace has been turned into a force to fear.
It is about time the state made serious efforts to stop mobs or individuals from acting as judge, jury and executioner.
All citizens must be made to respect law of the land and the teachings of Islam. Indeed, in the wake of the lynching of a Sri Lankan Christian manager of a Sialkot factory and another man in Khanewal, the then Council of Islamic Ideology chairman had held a presser along with Council members and 17 religious scholars declaring that violence against anyone on blasphemy allegations is inhuman and against the Sharia and the Constitution.
It is imperative, therefore, that the government call a meeting of all respected religious scholars and parties as well as legal experts to evolve a consensus on finding an effective way to put this genie back in the bottle.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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