Pakistan: Kot Radha Kishan - killing of two Christians

By Syed Mansoor Hussain

Either out of fear of being branded pro-blasphemy or because of actual sympathy for the cause of anti-blasphemy rioters, members of our political and official establishment rarely try to intervene to protect the victims.

Recently, I have started wondering whether we as a nation have finally become completely inured to violence. It is no consolation that violence at the individual or the group level is quite prevalent all over the world. Perhaps the sort of violence that has diminished the world over is that which is perpetrated by states against other states. However, where nation states have stepped back, non-state actors have taken over. Today, the sort of violence that I am thinking of is that which led to the horrible killing of two Christians in a city near Lahore.

The circumstances in which a pregnant woman — a mother of three — and her husband were burnt to death are reasonably well known. However things might have started, it was a rampaging mob of ‘ordinary’ people that eventually perpetrated this tragedy. No, it was not a group of brainwashed seminarians or members of some outlawed extremist religious group that were responsible for what happened. The perpetrators were a group of people that could well be living in any neighbourhood next to any one of us. And that is the most horrifying aspect of this tragedy. Have we as a people become so inured to violence, torture and murder that we can embark upon such an action at the slightest real or imagined provocation?

Blasphemy is serious business. Any words or actions deliberately meant to hurt the sensibilities of any religious group or attempts to desecrate their scriptures are all undesirable and there are laws that adequately and perhaps excessively cover such actions. Even if blasphemy is a crime under the law, it still does not mean that ordinary people should take the law into their own hands and act as judges as well as executioners. I am sure that when all this was going on the local police and local bureaucrats were well aware of what was happening; there is no evidence that any of them — and I repeat: any of them — made any effort to stop this atrocity from being committed.

Over the years I have thought quite a bit about the problem of blasphemy as it affects religious minorities in Pakistan and also as an extension of the impression all this leaves of the image of Pakistan abroad. Without being an apologist for any side, there are three important observations that are in order. The first and foremost is that even though blasphemy is a crime punishable by death, there have been no executions for this crime in Pakistan though many have been so convicted. This might seem insignificant but I think that whatever else one might have to say, the fact that nobody has ever been executed in Pakistan for blasphemy says a lot.

The second observation is that, very often, the ‘safest’ place for those accused of blasphemy is in a jail. I would call it a sort of protective custody. This observation is becoming a bit dicey of late. I used to think that jail was a safe place for people accused of blasphemy but there have been two recent incidents where jail guards killed two such inmates. If this becomes more common then we will have a serious problem. As far as the question of setting the blasphemy accused free on bail or for good is concerned, that is fraught with danger because the return of such persons to their original community takes on political and religious overtones. And once the local mullah gets involved, bad things will happen inevitably. The third observation is that in a country where uttering anything in public that is even the least bit uncomplimentary about any important Muslim religious figure could well lead to serious consequences, it is unlikely that any sane and reasonably intelligent person would commit such an action. That then presumes that those actually guilty of blasphemy are either not quite sane or are at least severely mentally challenged. Other than that, most of those accused of blasphemy are members of religious minorities that do not subscribe to Islamic theology and doctrinal difference could well be claimed as blasphemy. Even in this category, an accusation of blasphemy is often used for the sake of revenge, to force people out of the community for the sake of their property or, worse, to make an example of them as probably happened in this case.

There are always going to be bad people who will do bad things. What really bothers me about this latest atrocity is that like many such incidents in the past where the victims were members of a minority community, officials did not try to prevent the atrocities. Even our chief minister of Punjab, who has a penchant for firing bureaucrats and police officers at a mere whim, did not take any action against those public officials who let all this happen. Or, if he did, he must have done it so discreetly that nobody has heard anything about it.

That is the real problem. Either out of fear of being branded pro-blasphemy or because of actual sympathy for the cause of anti-blasphemy rioters, members of our political and official establishment rarely try to intervene to protect the victims. Yes, much sympathy and distribution of taxpayer money follows such riots but rarely are there any dismissals of government officials who stood by and let such riots happen. And rarely, if ever, the mullah who incited the riot or the leader of the rioters who stood to receive some gain end up in jail. And if either of them does get arrested, they will be garlanded profusely by members of our legal fraternity and become ghazis (holy warriors) overnight. Of course, if ever presented in court, they will be released in short order for “lack of evidence”.

Can anything be done? Essentially, what needs to be done is to make sure that the law is actually implemented and followed. Yes, the law.