Daily Times

Almost 77 years to the day Pakistan was founded with a vision of a religiously tolerant society, the country still grapples with the evil of religious violence. A recent incident in Sargodha exemplifies this ongoing challenge. A Christian man faced violence from a mob of religious people who attempted to lynch him upon accusations of desecrating religious scriptures.

The charged mob attempted to break into the man’s house, carrying sticks and weapons. The unfortunate event reminds one of the Jaranwala rampage where numerous churches were torched, houses demolished, and copies of the Holy Bible desecrated because of alleged blasphemy by two members of the Christian community.

It is also an eerie reminder of the 2009 Gojra riots, the 2013 Joseph Colony incident and the lynching of a Sri Lankan factory manager, Priyantha Diyawadanage, in Sialkot in 2022 on mere accusations of blasphemy. The fact that it is the third consecutive large-scale event in the last 3 years underscores a worrying trend of mob violence in Pakistan.

No sovereign state permits its citizens to take the law into their own hands.

While the allegations of blasphemy may be true, no sovereign state permits its citizens to take the law into their own hands. However, in the absence of the rule of law, vigilantism increases. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, it often requires a lot of pressure from human rights organizations, public protests, and social media campaigns to hold the perpetrators of violence accountable.

Resultantly, this sense of impunity has emboldened the extremists to act as judge, jury and executioner thereby, increasing the probability of such unfortunate events to occur in future as well. In the wake of the current incident, the police have arrested more than 25 people, however; there is a fear that the promises of punishing the perpetrators may turn out to be merely lip service, causing this unfortunate event, like a dozen others, to vanish in the pages of history. If law enforcement agencies had imposed severe punishments on those responsible for violence without waiting for public outcry, such incidents might not have become so prevalent.

Sadly, in the last few decades, the disturbing trend of using the blasphemy card for settling personal scores has also been observed. For instance, in the case of Sri Lankan manager, Priyantha Diyawadana, it was later found out that the man was framed for blasphemy by some labourers due to a personal vendetta.

In some cases, the mob is also incited by religious clerics driven by their prejudices against people of different sects and religions. Such a pattern leads to increased sense of insecurity and fear among the religious minorities leading to feelings of alienation among them.

The beauty of Pakistan lies in its religious and cultural plurality, however; such events pose a serious threat to the pluralistic fabric of our society. The plurality of Pakistan is already receding. According to an estimate, the percentage of non-Muslim religious communities in Pakistan has plunged from 23 percent to a staggering three percent since the inception of the country. Experts link this decline with the frequent acts of violence against minorities. Besides this, such incidents also damage the image of Pakistan internationally which in turn undermines the prospects of foreign investment thereby hurting the country economically. While we criticize the Western world for rampant Islamophobia, the condition of religious minorities in our own country is no better. It is high time that we put our own house in order so that such horrific incidents are not repeated in the future.

To this increasing trend of violence, the authorities need to take strict action to prevent vigilante justice. Moreover, the government should initiate awareness programs in educational institutions that promote tolerance. These programs should impart the teachings and practical examples of Prophet Muhammad (SAWW), who established the state of Madina as a peaceful place for all religions, and the principles of Pakistan’s founder, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who envisioned Pakistan as a pluralistic society welcoming to all. By integrating such teachings, we can nurture a generation that not only values religious diversity but also respects the religious sentiments of each other, thereby making society a peaceful place to live.

The writer is a freelance columnist.