Daily Times

At least the first stage of the Sarfraz Shah case has concluded. An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Karachi has handed down strict punishments to the offenders. The Rangers guard who shot two bullets into Shah at point blank range has been sentenced to death and six others, including five other Rangers, have been given life imprisonment.

It is indeed praiseworthy to see such speedy justice being meted out by our courts, otherwise not known for bringing culprits to book and ensuring justice to the aggrieved within a reasonable time. The Sarfraz Shah case became a cause celebre, picked up by the media and pursued so determinedly that the justice system had no other choice than to put the case on fast track and send it straight to the ATC. The fact that Shah’s gruesome death was caught on camera and shown all over the media added to the speed of it all. There will no doubt be appeals by the convicted and opposition to the death penalty — Human Rights Watch is already citing the verdict as too harsh — but, for now, the ends of justice appear to have been served.

Compare this case that is just some two months old to the closure everyone is waiting for in the Salmaan Taseer murder, which occurred more than seven months ago. There was never any justification for Taseer’s murderer — Mumtaz Qadri — to be garlanded and lauded by misguided people who thought he had fulfilled some self-created religious duty by brutally shooting dead the late Governor. In such cases in the past, where issues revolving around the controversial blasphemy law are involved, judges generally are reluctant to hear the case, given the pressures exerted by the extreme religious right. It came as no surprise therefore that the judge originally appointed to hear Mr Taseer’s case went on indefinite leave early on. Now, mercifully, when a fresh judge is hearing the case, the trial is being conducted in prison because of security issues, a venue inaccessible by Taseer’s supporters but which is besieged at every hearing by the fanatics outside who consider murderer Qadri a hero.

Why is it that in this case, where there are innumerable witnesses to the murder and the assailant himself has confessed, the same speed and despatch is not visible as in the Sarfaraz Shah tragedy? Can the judicial process be cowed down by those who find any mention of the need to amend the blasphemy laws to prevent their misuse and abuse unacceptable because they are unable to distinguish between God’s word and man’s law? It is about time that the same urgency as in the Sarfraz Shah case be applied to a case as clear cut as Salmaan Taseer’s assassination, so that justice may not only be done, but be seen to be done. On the basis of the experience of the last seven months at least, when comparing the examples of the two cases quoted above, it seems that justice is not only blind, but that its scales do not appear to be evenly balanced. *