Daily Times

Sindhi artist Qutub Rind’s family revealed that he was killed over “false charges of blasphemy” on July 17 in Lahore. The Jacobabad-based artist was in Lahore for an art show when he reportedly went into a tussle with his landlord. His friend who registered the FIR says the accused confessed to killing Rind for committing ‘blasphemy’. It has also been stated by Rind’s family that the police officials are trying to cover up the incident. The police denies that ‘blasphemy’ was the reason for the murder.

That the incident remained unreported and undisclosed for two weeks says a lot about the law and order situation in the country.

Religious intolerance and ‘blasphemy’-related violence in Pakistan has claimed countless lives over the years. What is worse is that state and police have either been complicit or inefficient in most cases. A mere allegation of blasphemy is enough for the radicals to take the law in their own hands and punish the ‘blasphemer’, while the state acts as silent spectator.

There have been several instances of mob justice and extra-judicial killing over allegations of blasphemy, but so far the state has been unable to come up with a counter-narrative to the mindset that condones this kind of violence. In April last year, Mashal Khan, a student in Mardan’s Abdul Wali Khan University was lynched to death by fellow students for ‘committing blasphemy’ on social media. The gruesome incident shook the nation, but it was business as usual after a few weeks of outrage. Such has been the case in all other incidents of religiously-motivated violence and mob justice. The Mashal Khan incident followed the then interior minister Chaudhry Nisar’s efforts to hunt alleged blasphemers on social media. Instead of educating the public and warning them against taking law into their own hands, the government at the time continued with its ‘anti-blasphemy’ drive. This is one of the reasons why killings over allegations of blasphemy have continued.

The people of Pakistan have high expectations of the incoming government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). PM-in waiting Imran Khan should act against religious intolerance and mob justice. Moreover, safeguards against the misuse of blasphemy law need to be introduced at the earliest.  *

Published in Daily Times, August 6^th 2018.