A fourteen year old boy has been sentenced to death, despite the fact that Pakistan has signed a UN convention forbidding such harsh punishments. In an unprecedented development, the court which awarded the sentence did not peruse the evidence because it accepted the argument that doing so would also have amounted to committing blasphemy. The judge who was originally appointed to hear the case decided to withdraw from it, it is said, because he couldn’t take pressure from the mullahs. The new judge overruled the fact, stressed by the defence, that the three “eyewitnesses” gave conflicting statements over issues central to the case. Now the main complainant has withdrawn his case!
If all this sounds quite bizarre, there’s more to come. When prime minister Benazir Bhutto said she was shocked and saddened by the decision, the fanatics promptly arraigned her for contempt of court. When the Lahore High Court chief justice set up a division bench to hear the appeal, the complainants’ counsel said he didn’t have confidence in the two judges. Then the mullahs went for Ms Asma Jehangir, the defence lawyer who is also chairperson of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission. After smashing her car they threatened to kill her. The head of an extremist religious organisation went further: he is reported to have warned that if the judgement were overturned, his followers would kill the two Christians anyway. A few hundred fanatics then proceeded to “demonstrate” outside the court and said they would kill the judges if they failed to uphold the death sentence.
Kill, kill, kill. That is what the fanatics want. Are we going to let them get away with murder time and again?
So far, we have. They are killing people everywhere, every day, by the hundreds. In Karachi, in Punjab, in the NWFP. The people of Pakistan have firmly rejected them again and again at the polls. Yet no government has had the courage or the conviction to stand up to them. The general policy seems to be: it’s a hornets’ nest, don’t stir it, give them some crumbs from time to time and let them sting one another to death.
But, of course, things have worked out quite differently. Whenever the state has conceded an inch to the fanatics they have come back to demand a yard. The extremists have proliferated and the yards are now stretching into miles. This is worst sort of opportunism imaginable on the part of the state. In essence, it means that civil society has been continuously sacrificed at the alter of the most foul form of politics.
The blame for this creeping terrorism must be squarely apportioned. It began insidiously enough under Z A Bhutto, became full-blown under Zia ul Haq and continued to thrive under Nawaz Sharif. The first two gentlemen aren’t around, so we can’t hold them accountable for their handiwork. But Mr Sharif is. Now he has chosen to remain silent in the midst of all this bloody mayhem. Is he waiting for the government to take action against these extremists so that he can make common cause with them all over again?
Punjab Governor Chaudhry Altaf Hussain is the only one who has been bold enough to call a spade a spade. “We won’t spare these fellows”, he has promised many times. Unfortunately, Chaudhry Sahib doesn’t have the powers to make his postures stick. It is Mr Manzoor Wattoo who is dragging his feet in the Punjab and it is Ms Bhutto who has been reluctant to tell Mr Aftab Sherpao and Mr Abdullah Shah to start cracking the whip in their provinces. As for President Farooq Leghari’s attempts to talk reason and peddle ever so softly with the fanatics the less said the better (“Sectarianism is a bad thing”, he says rather profoundly!).
Why is it so difficult to crush these blood-thirsty fanatics? Is it because the police isn’t strong enough to take them on? Does the government fear a public backlash? Isn’t there enough evidence to convict the leading troublemakers? Are the special anti-terrorist courts reserved only for the likes of opposition leaders who brandish an odd rifle here or there?
No. Ask any DC and he will tell you that their bark is much worse than their bite. Ask any home secretary and the response is invariably this: “Give me an order and watch how swiftly and efficiently it is carried out”. The public, too, has had it with them. The evidence against them is overwhelming. The special courts are raring to go. Why, then, is the government prevaricating?
Some self-appointed spokesmen for the “ideology of Pakistan” are delighted that the two alleged blasphemers have been sentenced to death. Such people do not care about the requirements of due process or justice, they do not care about minority rights, they do not care about the disastrous consequences of the immoderate image Pakistan presents to the world outside. If the government is worried about their sermonising editorials, it should think again. Having lost all credibility, their empty threats are not worth the paper they are written on.
Enough is enough, we say, let us act decisively before it is too late.