The real war that we are fighting- The Christian Samuel Masih, accused in a case of blasphemy, who was attacked by a police constable deputed to guard him, has died of his head injury.Since ‘79 — in 1981 the state stipulated that blasphemy was punishable with mandatory death sentence — there have been hundreds of cases.
Editorial-State’s religious and legal contradictions
The Christian Samuel Masih, accused in a case of blasphemy, who was attacked by a police constable deputed to guard him, has died of his head injury. Earlier, the police arrested the constable who had attacked him and he is in police custody. The killer’s reason was simple: Masih had allegedly blasphemed against the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and it was his (constable’s) duty to kill him for doing so. This is a case that brings out, like nothing else, the myriad contradictions these laws have infused in this state and society.
Until 1979 when General Zia-ul Haq pushed the blasphemy business to the forefront of his Islamic legislation, only six people had been charged under blasphemy and all the cases were laughed out of the courts. Since ‘79 — in 1981 the state stipulated that blasphemy was punishable with mandatory death sentence — there have been hundreds of cases. The lower courts have invariable sentenced the accused, though higher courts have always found the cases mala fide and freed the accused. However, for the accused this has meant spending seven to eight years in jail before the dispensation of justice. The accused are also at great risk during and after the trial. Some have been bumped off in jail and others have had to move out of Pakistan to avoid being killed.
When the government floated the idea of amending the procedure under which someone is accused of blasphemy, the rightwing lobby argued that it was best for people to be in police custody because after being thus charged a person was at risk of being killed by the people if he/she were allowed to remain at large. It was a diabolical argument. But even if it were accepted for the sake of the reasoning, what would the rightwing say now that a constable has chosen to kill an accused?
The fact is that it is a bad law both in its conception and its implementation. Hence it is flawed at both ends. Cases, in which under-trial accused have been killed by the direct or indirect involvement of law enforcement personnel, clearly show that the legislation has created a psyche that encourages vigilante behaviour. This is of course a problem that will always present itself when a state decides to blunder into the area of belief and legislate on the basis of the predominant religion.
The contradiction it sows is clearly visible in the conduct of the constable who, as an officer of the state, was deputed to ensure the safety of the accused. Instead, he chose to kill him. Why? Simply, because his perceived religious obligation overrode his duty as an officer of the law. He thought the law conflicted with his duty as a Muslim. Since he believed this to be a religious state, he felt that it could not have laws that conflicted with the higher aims of the state. His reasoning, flawed as it is, is logical, given the Pakistani state’s own contradictions.
Punjab’s Inspector-General Police says the training schedule so far does not have a consistent component on human and citizens’ rights. The IGP wants to rectify this situation. Wonderful. However, this problem needs to be tackled at both ends of the spectrum. While the IGP is planning to do it at the low end of the spectrum, the state needs to do its own thing at the high end of the spectrum. This would require the state to reverse the retrogressive laws responsible for generating the contradictions that result in such tragedies and present Pakistan as a savage society refusing to heed the logic of pluralism. *
dailytimes.com.pk |
