Mashal’s incident is the first time that our rulers have mustered up the courage to condemn mob violence in the name of religion. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was shocked and saddened. The Balochistan Assembly and the National Assembly unanimously declared his murder as ‘barbaric’ and ‘cold-blooded’. Sardar Abdul Rehman Kethran declared him a martyr. The Chief Justice of Pakistan took a Suo moto notice of his murder. The Senate’s Standing Committee on Interior asked the government to refer the killing to the military courts.
The jihadists, Islamists and the right-wingers are justifying Mashal’s murder without mincing words. Forget the rightists for a moment and look at the leftists’ reaction.
While the members of National Assembly offered fateha (condolence prayer) for Mashal, the members of Awami National Party (ANP) and Jamiat Ulmai Islam (JUI-F) opposed a move in Mardan’s District Assembly that sought to offer fateha for Mashal. Needless to remind that ANP espouses a nonviolent approach to counter extremism. Its founder Khan Abdul Ghaffar (popularly known as Bacha Khan) is known as ‘Frontier Gandhi’ in India.
In 2012, ANP lawmaker Ghulam Ahmed Bilour put a bounty of $100,000 on the head of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the director/producer of a 14-min blasphemous film — Innocence of Muslims — that sparked violent protests across the Muslim world. The film was on the Youtube that Pakistan kept blocked for three years. In 2015, Bilour announced a $200,000 head money for the owner of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo that published blasphemous caricatures. ANP’s leadership has yet to act against Bilour who is still a lawmaker. It seems that ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan is good only for playing to the gallery by making emotional statements like if his son were involved in Mashal’s killing, he should be hanged. Is there anyone to realise that the ANP is following in the footsteps of barbarians than Bacha Khan?
Daily Jasarat is a publication of Jamat-e-Islami. One of its columnists, Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, justified Mashal’s lynching this logic: “Does not crowd takes the law into their hand in other societies? His murder proves that Pashtuns are honourable people. The liberals should now open their eyes. Mashal Khan is being projected as an innocent chicken who was eaten up by brutal kites. But the Facebook posts prove that he was not innocent.”
The same day Jasarat editorial slated Nawaz Sharif for declaring Mashal innocent without evidence. It did not spare his daughter Maryam Safdar who declared the mob’s mindset as ‘putrid’. It supported the mob’s barbarity with a cliché, “When the state will not do justice, the justice would be done by the mob.”
Naveed Masood Hashmi is known for his vitriolic writings in Daily Ausaf. In April 18 edition, he says that if the government had punished the five bloggers, the mob would not have killed Mashal. The mob took the law into its hand because it knew very well that the government would never punish those who commit blasphemy. He declared those anchors as ladeen (atheist) who raised voice for Mashal.
Ansar Abbasi, while beating around the bush wrote in Daily Jungon April 17 that the rulers have failed to implement Islam in Pakistan. If Pakistan were truly an Islamic society, Mashal Khan would have never been murdered. The best statement came from Mashal’s father Iqbal Jan. Despite losing a young son who was killed in the most atrocious way, the man was calm and resolute. When BBC Urdu sought his views on his son’s killing, he recited a verse by Ghalib.
Could you have acted like Mr Jan after losing a son like this? Only a person blessed with sabre Ayub (the patience of the Prophet Ayub) can stand with so much grace, endurance and fortitude that was exhibited by Mr Jan. If there were a Nobel Prize for patience, Mr Jan would have been the ideal candidate for it!
The writer is a freelance journalist and researcher based in Islamabad. He has been editing Pakistan Media Monitor, a weekly media summary, since 2003. [email protected]