In the month of September, yet another Pakistani – became victim of lawlessness from a person who was supposed to be a law enforcer and protector.  The victim, a 70-year-old British man Muhammad Asghar, was a mentally challenged person already sentenced to death by the court on blasphemy charges.

On September 25, a prison guard, Muhammad Yousuf from Elite Force, managed to gain access to the barrack where the victim was kept and opened fire on him. He survived the attack but got wounded [Note: Initial reports declared Pastor Zafar Bhatti as dead and Muhammad Asghar as wounded[1] [2].  There is no further information about Pastor Zafar Bhatti though there are unconfirmed reports that he was also shot at.]  Did the guard commit a crime and does he deserve punishment or applause for an act that many in Pakistan condone in the name of religion, using the controversial Blasphemy laws as a shield?

Unfortunately, this is not the first case of this kind;  on January 4,  2011, a personal security guard of the then Governor of the Punjab province, Salman Taseer,  resorted to a similar lawlessness when he rained bullets on Taseer in the presence of a dozen police officials and several bystanders at a busy upscale market in Islamabad.

A section of the lawyer’s community had then hailed the perpetrator of this crime – Malik Mumtaz Qadri – as a hero and greeted him with flowers when he arrived at the court for the first hearing.  The judge, who convicted Qadri to death, had to leave the country soon after passing the judgment for never to return.

Rashid Rehman, a lawyer and human rights activist, was another victim of a premeditated extrajudicial murder in May2014.  Before his murder, his co-lawyer had threatened him right inside a judicial court to either quit appearing as a defense lawyer of a blasphemy accused or be ready to disappear from the face of earth. He knew too, that many others had declined to take on the case but refused to budge because he believed that every defendant deserved a lawyer, even – or perhaps especially – someone facing perhaps the most serious allegation that can be leveled at you in Pakistan. And he paid the price for it when two gunmen entered his office in the southern Punjab and shot him dead.

For unexplained reasons no action was taken against the fellow lawyer who had threatened Rehman earlier.

The target killing in September of a Professor of Karachi University, Mr Shakeel Auj, is also suspected to have a link with hate messages that were sent by some of his fellow professors accusing him of committing blasphemy.

According to the data on the reported blasphemy cases, 59 persons have been extra judicially murdered in the country since 1990.  Among them were nine women as well, who were not spared by the brave religious zealots who feel solace in committing such crimes.  Two of these extra judicially murdered persons were Iqbal Butt and Muhammad Imran who were slain even after getting acquitted from the judicial court. There are four cases of extra judicial attempts to kill blasphemy accused, including the two latest attempts to kill Pastor Zafar Bhatti and Muhammad Asghar according to the data annexed to this report as attachment.

Like honor killing – a brutal tradition perpetrated in rural Pakistan in the name of family honor – extra judicial killings of blasphemy accused has also become such a social evil that draws adoration from people who consider it religiously right to kill anybody who might have committed blasphemy or defiled the name of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

The Punjab province appears to have had the highest number of such crimes committed in the country, where 49 blasphemy accused have so far been extra- judicially killed.  In Sindh, seven persons lost their lives to this crime followed by the capital city of Islamabad with a loss of two lives and Khyber Pukhtunkhwa had only one victim. Balochistan, and FATA, the highly volatile regions of the country, have so far been surprisingly safe from such crime.

Vigilante justice and mobocracy are the two illegal forms of crime that came into practice soon after the induction of blasphemy laws, PPC-295B and PPC295C, in 1984 and 1985. The first such cases of vigilante justice killed five non-Muslims Tahir Iqbal in 1990, Niamat Ahmer, Bantu Masih and Mukhtar Masih in 1992, and Manzoor Masih in 1993. After attaining impunity in committing vigilante justice, the next step forward of the religious fanatics was to resort to mobocracy.  The victim of this crime was none other than a Hafiz-e-Quran- one who remembers the Quran by heart – Dr. Sajjad Farooq, who was beaten to death by a mob of religious vigilantes in Gujranwala on false blasphemy charges in April 1995.

Since then there has been no letup in extra judicial killings of blasphemy accused and on an average three persons have been killed every year.  Coincidently, Gujranwala and Lahore are the two districts of the most populous province Punjab where extra-judicial killings on blasphemy charges have taken the highest toll in the country, nearly 50% of which are Muslims and the remaining 50% are non-Muslims though they are less than 5% of the total population.

Attempts of lynching of blasphemy accused by outraged mob are another form of lawlessness that has also become a practice now. Since 1997 to date nearly thirteen cases of lynching attempts have been reported in the press.

Incidents of vigilante justice and adoration of the perpetrators of such crimes by  different segments of the society raise question not only about the sense of justice that has gained acceptance in the country but also about the inability of the state and that of the political leadership to counter the trend. It also highlights the phenomenon of growing religions intolerance. For fear of reprisal by religious extremists and vigilantes most people opt to stay silent when target-killing is committed. At times many become partner in crime. So far real punitive action by police authorities or courts is missing as political leaders refuse to pick up courage and push for a review of the law that extremist’s uses as a carte blanche to murder people they believe have committed blasphemy.

Attachment

Extrajudicial killing                                  =             57           Killed

Acquittal/Extra Judicial                          =             2              killed after getting acquitted from court.

Extrajudicial attempt/Acquittal             =             1              Injured in an extra judicial attack but was later released

Extrajudicial attempt                                =             3              injured

 Mohammad Nafees, Senior Research Fellow at CRSS

[1] http://tribune.com.pk/story/767045/british-man-jailed-for-blasphemy-wounded-in-adiala-jail/

[2] http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-33127-Cop-shoots-blasphemy-convict-in-Adiala-jail