Pakistan: Zardari condemns Kasur incident as ‘sheer barbarism’

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/

PPP Co-Chairman former president Asif Ali Zardari has expressed profound grief and shock and condemned as ‘sheer barbarism’ the incident in Kot Radha Kishan in Kasur district of Punjab in which a mob beat up a Christian couple at the brick kiln where they worked and then threw the barely alive victims into the kiln to be burnt alive along with their yet-to-be-born child allegedly for desecrating the holy Quran.

“The sheer barbarity of burning to death of a young couple along with their yet to be born child will continue to haunt thoughtful people even in a distant age and clime,” the former president said in a statement on Thursday. Zardari said that mere condemnation and expression of grief and sorrow over the incident was not enough. “We must move on and take practical measures to ensure that religion is not employed to shrink the space for citizens, particularly the minorities,” he said.

He further stated that a fundamental challenge to the human rights of citizens of present time was the worrying increase in religion and ideology based violence increasing the sense of insecurity. “The application of religion based laws to settle personal scores has done disservice to religion itself that must be stopped,” the former president said. He said that these challenges needed to be addressed dispassionately, urgently and boldly by the political parties, the human rights committees of parliament, the civil society and the progressive elements.

Spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar said that former president, while strongly denouncing the incident, also called for an impartial probe into the incident and exemplary punishment to the perpetrators of the crime under the law.

“Justice must not only be done but also be seen to be done,” he said, adding that “a people may survive without professing faith but are unlikely to survive without ensuring justice to the oppressed and marginalised”.

Senator Babar said that if media reports based on some initial fact-finding missions by private bodies were true it calls for urgent, transparent and credible inquiry into the incident.

According to the report of one such fact-finding mission, the murdered man had a dispute over the recovery of the advance money that the kiln owner had extended to two members of two Muslim families who had escaped. “The kiln owners had asked the murdered man to repay the advance paid to the escaped families because he had introduced them to the kiln owners,” the report said.

Zardari said that it should also be investigated as to whether and why the police failed to rescue the couple despite reaching the site and whether the police was prevented from performing its duty of taking the couple into custody for investigation of the allegation against them. The former president also asked the party leadership to visit the bereaved family to express sympathy and offer condolences.