The socio-cultural environs of Sargodha region has changed drastically from the jungle-like habitat between the Chenab and Jhelum rivers when it was founded in 1903. Its nomenclature further changed from a semi-developed but culturally and intellectually vibrant and predominantly middle-class city in the 1970s and 1980s.
The religion-based politics in the region including the partition in 1947, the Ahrar movement of those times and the anti-Ahmadi campaigns of the 1950s and onwards, sectarian strifes of the 1980s and later times have all continuously transformed Sargodha in everything but its name. Despite its Sanskritian origin and lack of consensus about the meaning of the word, Sargodha has survived because the Sargodhians simply like this identity.
In the past, the city was once associated with literary giants such as Dr Wazir Agha and poet and writer Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi who treated the city as their home and frequently travel.ed to Sargodha to recite their poetry (Mushairas). This scribe also witnessed Sargodha district growing into the citrus farm of Punjab and becoming the export hub of Pakistani oranges.
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Sargodha Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed deserves credit for his efforts to maintain the legacy of literary magnets and predecessors such as Prof Riaz Ahmed Shad and Prof Sahbzada Abdul Rasool, also a historiographer of Sargodha. These luminaries not only attracted intellectuals from the country and abroad but they also defined the creative and aesthetic potential of the people of Sargodha.
Even in the 1980s, University Road bustled with its government and Church-run schools, as did the Sargodha Institute of Technology and Fatima Hospital, managed by the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, the latter two institutions have lost the glory they once embodied. However, a Christian-led and well-managed St Doris School was a respected institution that was named after its founder Ms Doris, who was the sister of famous playwright Denis Isaac of PTV Peshawar.
The Christian community had a sizeable presence in the urban and rural localities of Sargodha. They had settled here from districts of Gujrat, Gujranwala, and Sialkot in the 20th century with other settlers who made the barren lands into cultivable and fertile farms. Some kept to agriculture, many joined other respectable professions.
Members of the Christian community had around 100 small and big businesses in the 1980s, from trunk and furniture-making to wholesale and retail businesses. The number of Christians in business grew with time. Some well-off Christians belonging to the Gill caste had already established a housing colony named Gillwala (land of the Gills), located on the Sargodha-Bhalwal Road adjacent to Satellite Town, then a posh area of the city.
Although surrounded by several feudal strongholds and businesses related to mines in the Salt Range, the business class of Sargodha also developed an industrial base in shoe-making, electrical appliances, stone crushing, etc. There was a Military Stud Farms since the beginning and an Airbase since 1959. The latter brought Sargodha the appellation of being ‘the city of falcons’ (Shaheenon Ka Shehr).
Reemergence of sectarianism
By the 1990s, Sargodha became a flourishing middle-class city, with its booming educational institutions. However, the omnipresent sectarian outfits started publicising a list of Ahmadi businesses in the city as part of their hate campaign against this community. According to writer Shozab Askari, this hate campaign entailed the gradual social and economic exclusion of the Ahmadi community and decline in businesses of this community. In the late 1980s, the house of the most respected Shia scholar Allama Muhammad Hussain Najfi was attacked by a mob. Fortunately, he remained unharmed.
The city’s population is predominantly Barailvi, though the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, with its Deobandi lineage anchored from its bastion in the neighbouring district Jhang, made its inroads in Sargodha. No surprise that one of the most feared terrorists of his times, Riaz Basra (1967-2006) hailed from Jhawarian, Sargodha.
Housing a sizeable Ahmadi population, Sargodha also became a hotspot for their persecution. The late Maulana Akram Toofani (1930-2021), a stalwart of the Aalmi Majlis Tahaffuz Khatm-e-Nubuwwat (World Congregation of Finality of Prophethood), used to take pride in having registered hundreds of cases against the members of the community, using anti-Ahmadi laws and invoking the sections of blasphemy laws. He was also instrumental in setting up the Khatm-e-Nubuwwat (Finality of Prophethood) Medical Complex in Sargodha City to compete with the Ahmadi-run health facility Tahir Hospital in adjacent Rabwah, known officially as Chenab Nagar.
The blasphemy laws became fully operational in Pakistan after the Federal Shariat Court decision of 1991 that made the death sentence mandatory under Section 295 C PPC. In 1992, the first death sentence under this section was passed against a Christian in Sargodha.
In his doctoral thesis on the economic and social development of Sargodha, scholar Muhammad Rashid argues that “Pakistan is one Muslim country which has long been troubled with Indian refugees from the past and their marginalisation socio-economically. The historical migration exposes Pakistan to social violence from the refugees comprising of different ethnicity (sic) and religion who settled in Pakistan post 1947 separation that they had to adapt with (sic) the socio-economic differences in a broader context.” However, not merely the refugees from India but the continuous influx of population from the periphery made socio-cultural integration a challenge whereas a lack of integration provided fertile ground for sectarianism.
While the public education system and public health systems are poorly resourced, Sargodha district housed 51 registered madrassahs of major Muslim sects that contributed to transforming the socio-cultural landscape of the district.
The undemocratic regimes empowered the madarassah leadership and caretakers of shrines (Gaddi Nasheen) who wield more influence over public perceptions than conventional politicians in today’s Sargodha.
The parable
The above discussion shows that what happened on May 25, 2024 in Mujahid Colony, Sargodha, though extremely sad, was hardly surprising.
73-year-old Nazir Masih, a well-known local of Mujahid Colony, Gillwala, was accused of burning pages of the Holy Quran by a grudging neighbour, like it has happened hundreds of times before. (The annual statistics of Prosecution and Prisons Department of Punjab are witness to this abuse).
The police immediately registered a case under a blasphemy charge without due process of law and investigation and a mob was collected spontaneously after calls from the mosque amplifiers. Then the people leading the mob burned Nazir’s house/ business and left the accused with fatal injuries.
This particular scene in the gruesome tale is repeated at several places, including Sialkot, Talumba, Khanewal, Qasur and Gojra with different actors and dates.
The government imposed Section 144 to stop any public protest from any side. The police arrested dozens of suspects in the case of mob violence. Routinely, the crises created by poor statecraft are left to be handled administratively whereas the local administration can’t deviate much from SOPs of conflict handling. At least the Punjab administration refrained from portraying the incident as a foreign conspiracy. That story isn’t selling anymore. Deflecting the attention from real factors and actors serves noone.
Like before, the case will be tried in the Anti-Terrorism Court, which will make the police’s job easier and make the administration of justice impossible.
Wajahat Masood, the chairperson of the Centre for Social Justice stated, “The trials in Anti-Terrorism Courts have consistently failed the purpose of justice for known reasons in Bahmaniwala- Kasur, Samerial- Sialkot and Gojra-Korean in 2009 and other cases.”
Police gave Nazir’s immediate family much-needed protection in the aftermath of the incident, but Nazir’s head was so badly and intentionally injured that only a miracle could have saved him. Like Robert Fanish and Anwar Masih who died in custody in 2009.
Usually, the sectarian/extremist outfits leave their footprint in these incidents. The name of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) has been cited in this incident as well, especially as the party reacted to the incident by giving a one-sided call to punish the burning of the Quran and not a single word condemning the mob violence.
Nazir’s son living in UAE and other relatives were not able to join his funeral on June 3, as the administration urged the family to bury the dead body as early as possible. Though the community called him a martyr and wanted to have a befitting memorial, the district administration - which appears to be in perennial fear of extremist organisations - used all means to downplay the event the next day.
“The members of the Christian community and civil society have held small protests across the country but the funerals after the assassination of blasphemy accused Manzoor Masih in Lahore and slaying of Naimat Ahmer in Faisalabad became big processions in 1994. That only reflects how the space for expressing grief over such incidents has shrunk,” laments Amjad Saleem Minhas of Sangat organisation.
Nazir’s family is a large clan, living in Pakistan and abroad, and everyone of them from the UK to the Middle East was shaken.
His granddaughter Sewera was at her home when the attack took place. She remembers her grandfather Nazir fondly: “I was raised by my grandfather as my father was living abroad for work. He was a thorough gentleman, a loving person, and a caring human being. I don’t have a clue why he was subjected to this brutality.” She also disclosed that the preparations for her marriage were underway and the attacker took her jewellery, cash, and clothes as well.
Usman, a grand nephew of Nazir Masih, is devastated. “My grand-uncle was a God-fearing, peace-loving, and Church-going person. I wish that his killers are punished and justice prevails,” he said. Commenting on whether he is happy with his name, Usman said, “I have no issue with my name though it is not common among Christians.”
The two Christian families of Chak 37, north of Sargodha, who faced charges of burning Quran last year have not returned to their homes. This new incident has further pushed them to live in fear and social anonymity and, in one case, without a livelihood. The father of Kashif* is so fearful that he finds it difficult to afford legal defence.
Casting an eye on the old incidents and ongoing cases brings one to sadly realise that new characters are made to fit in the plot of a tragic tale that is repeated now and then. Sadly though, each tragedy has failed so far to convince the people at the helm to try to change the course of events.
Dispensation of justice in blasphemy cases
Without touching upon the legal lacunas and selective implementation, the Council of Islamic Ideology has once again presented a way forward in the administrative domain.
The proposal is that “the cases of mob attack (shying away from saying abuse of blasphemy laws) should be probed and tried under a special procedure.”
This approach has repeatedly failed. For instance, procedural amendments to blasphemy laws in 2004 and 2017 failed to address the abuse. Moreover, the existence of the Anti-Corruption and Anti-Terrorism courts became useless against their purpose. How will another special procedure produce different results is the question.
“Indeed, a procedural amendment will tend to postpone the actual resolve, and will be at cross with its purpose,” said Yasar Talib, a human rights activist.
Dr Yaqoob Khan Bangash, who was part of the HRCP’s fact-finding team to Sargodha, observed, “Anyone looking at the case file or the location of the incident and actors, can easily figure out that the allegation of burning the Quran must have been a made-up story.” Therefore a rigorous effort will be required to collect evidence and bring the actual culprits to justice.
Thy name?
Unofficially, Nazir was also called Lazar (or Lazarus in English). Ejaz Gill, his cousin, says Nazir liked it when his family and friends called him Lazar though it was not discussed why.
There are two characters with this name in the gospels. One is Lazar, a fictional character (Lazar and the rich man), a beggar and destitute who found no solace while alive but found a place in the lap of Abraham, according to the Gospel of Luke (16:19-31). Lazar of Bethany was the other whom Jesus Christ raised from the dead according to the Gospel of John (11:1–44).
Only the future will tell what path the story of Nazir will take after he is no longer here to prove his innocence. Will he share the path of the risen Lazar through a miracle and find new life and meaning? In this context, justice taking its course. Or, like the second example, will Lazar find justice only in the hereafter?
Perhaps Lazar of Sargodha will become a distinct new parable. That prospect apart, a just outcome of Nazir Masih’s case and many other cases shall take a reconstruction of a polity and society that overcomes the menace of religion-based hatred and violence. Not just Sargodha, but many parts of Pakistan are bemoaning this state of affairs and await redemption.
Peter Jacob is a researcher and human rights activist working with the Centre for Social Justice. He can be reached at jacobpete@gmail.com
All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author