The brutal and cold-blooded assassination Tuesday morning of Pakistan’s Christian minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti by rabid armed militants – masquerading as Taliban and Al Qaeda followers – has stunned almost every body and sent shock waves across the country. This is the second high-profile murder after the January 4 assassination of former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer by his own guard in capital Islamabad. Both Taseer and Bhatti have been in the forefront of a campaign aimed at amending the country Blasphemy Law, enshrined in the federal constitution as Article 295. Its clause ‘C’ proscribes death for desecration of the Holy Quran or insulting the Prophet Mohammad.
Though Bhatti toned down his campaign for changing the law in the aftermath of Governor Taseer assassination, he continued to receive anonymous threats by purported Taliban, asking him to refrain from speaking about the Blasphemy Law, which former dictator General Ziaul Haq had reinforced in the late 1980s by inserting the death penalty for the offenders.
A pamphlet dropped at the residence of the former minorities– minister by Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan [TTP] Punjab reads as ¿the same is the fate of the one who commits blasphemy–.
Reports compiled by civil society members, including a Karachi-based activist Nafees Mohammad say that a total of 34 people have been killed extra-judicially in Pakistan during 1990-2010 following charges of blasphemy. These include 15 Muslims, 16 Christians, two Ahmadis and one Hindu.
Giving the latest of the blasphemy-related incidents in the country, Mohammad says as that as many as 10 persons have been charged under the blasphemy law during the first two months of 2011 alone. Quoting reports in the daily Dawn, Mohammad said about 35 blasphemy cases were reported during 2010 in Southern Punjab alone, where most radical Islamist groups are based.
Southern Punjab is a predominantly rural, tribal and backward region where 42 million of Pakistan roughly 180 million inhabitants live. History suggests that feuding families and clans tend to invoke the Blasphemy to settle personal scores or implicate rivals for long-drawn litigation.
Driven by political expedience, and in order not to displease religio-political allies, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani himself persuaded a party member Sherry Rehman to withdraw a draft bill aimed at amending the Blasphemy Law which, she had submitted in the national legislature last year.
Reacting to the gory murder of Shahbaz Bhatti, renowned political analyst Hassan Askari says ‘the message of the assailants is clear that those who disagree with their perspective face retribution and even physical elimination. This incident has once again increases the sense of insecurity among all and sundry.
Most observers agree that the state ´ buried under economic crisis and guided by expedience – lacks a system to prevent radical Islamist groups from violence against dissent. Besides a fledgling political will, capacity of the law-enforcement security apparatus of the country is another big obstruction in the fight for reforming the 1980 era controversial laws.
CRSS strongly condemns the assassination of Bhatti and demands of all the political forces to join hands for containing the wave of extremism. CRSS believes unless the Parliament stands up collectively and reviews controversial but lethal laws including the Blasphemy Act, radical Islamists will continue to intimidate and eliminate members of civil society. The ruling elite of Pakistan ´ both the civilian and military establishment as well as the politicians, CRSS believes, must reject and condemn in unequivocal terms such acts by groups alleged to have been “assets” in the past. The January 12, 2001 ban on all the six extremist Islamist outfits, announced by the then President Pervez Musharraf must be implemented across-the-board in letter and spirit to deter murderers disguised as Taliban from taking out liberal Pakistanis.