Sunni mobs are being given free rein in the Imran Khan regime to mete out vigilante justice to minorities on the pretext of blasphemy. The police either looks the other way or too easily bows to the mob frenzy as some recent cases have shown. This state’s abject surrender to the Sunni extremist group, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), recently has given a signal to the police force to go `soft` on such mobs.
The latest case took place early this month when a highly-charged mob, armed with batons and iron rods, ransacked a police station in Islamabad, to lynch a person detained for blasphemy. The local police had to summon other forces in the neighbouring areas to control the mob. No case was filed against them.
In May this year, Peshawar police filed a case of blasphemy against organisers of the feminist Aurat Azadi march . The group had taken out a march demanding justice to women on the International Women’s Day, March 8, despite strong opposition from extremist groups and individuals. In January 2021, a Christian nurse was attacked by the hospital staff in Karachi accusing her of blasphemy. She was abused, slapped and roughed up the Sunni staff.
The police, after investigation, found the charges to be false and released her. A few days later, a mob attacked the police station and forced the police to file a case of blasphemy against the nurse. In April this year, a similar incident took place in Lahore when a Christian nurse found to her horror that she was being accused of blasphemy by her colleagues. She has since gone into hiding. Same month, two other Christian nurses in Faisalabad were attacked with knife by another staff of the hospital for committing blasphemy. The nurses were removing some posters on the orders of their director. The attacker alleged that the poster carried Koranic verses.
Last month, Hindus in Sindh were targeted for blasphemy. The police registered at least two cases against Hindus for blasphemy after a mob vandalised a temple and attacked Hindu homes. Many believe that they were being targeted for raising their voice against widespread abduction, rape and conversion of Hindu women by Muslims in the province. More than a thousand women are abducted and converted for marriage by Muslims every year.
Civil rights organisations have been noticing an increased trend of false accusations, mob attacks on police stations and other atrocities in the name of blasphemy ever since Imran
Khan came to power.
In 2020, for instance, one of the highest number of cases, 200 in all, were filed on blasphemy charges in different parts of the country. At least 150 or 75 percent of the accused were Muslims. Among non-Muslims, Ahmadis accounted for 40 or 20 percent of the total reported cases, Christians seven or 3.5 per cent and Hindus two or one per cent. According to a minority civil rights group in Pakistan, at least 1,855 people have been accused under
offences related to religion between 1987 and 2020. The group said at least 78 people were killed by extremist groups or individuals on allegations, almost all of them false, of blasphemy--of these 42 were Muslims, 23 Christians, nine
Ahmadis, two Hindus, and two persons whose religious identity could not be ascertained. The anti-blasphemy laws in Pakistan are like self-inflicted wounds, creating deeper socialdiscord and bringing bad name to the country and its people. And yet, the political leadership, including Prime Minister Imran Khan, is too frightened to even debate the issue which has become a key talking point in the international arena. The US State Department’s latest report on religious freedom has flagged Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws and attacks on minorities, so has a recent resolution in the European Parliament.
Within the country, there is almost total silence on the issue with the media, otherwise quite brave in dealing with contentious issues, rarely making an effort to frame the issue, especially after the brutal killing of former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer by his personal guard. The guard, Muhammad Qadri, was hailed as a martyr by all and sundry. His grave has become a gathering point for Sunni muslims and an inspiration for Sunni extremist organisations like Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). In the past few years, TLP, with the patronage of the army, has become a dreaded monster of a group for millions of minorities in the country. The recent wave of violence and arson unleashed by TLP in several cities in Pakistan, and the abject capitulation of the Imran Khan government, have only added to the growing fear among a significant section of the population.
