Justice without meaning
Blasphemy cases in our country arise as a means to settle petty scores — over property,a business or other matters.
It is clear that the criminal justice system in Pakistan has lost all meaning. There is, in fact, no sense of law and order left and with people taking matters into their own hands, only might prevails. We have seen such incidents before — we see them now again. An 80-year-old man, acquitted by a court late last year on blasphemy charges, and recently released, was shot dead in his hometown of Sheikhupura, apparently by the same man who had accused him in 2011.
According to the family of the victim, octogenarian Iqbal Butt, the accusation of blasphemy arose after a sharp verbal exchange between him and the cleric Maulvi Waqas, the khateeb of the local mosque; as has happened time and again before, protests by local clerics who were instigated by Waqas, led to charges being brought against the old man, which in turn led to his arrest. After hearing the case, he was found innocent by court, while a committee of ulema in Sheikhupura — who examined the matter — reached precisely the same verdict.
Despite all this, Iqbal Butt suffered the ultimate punishment — death. It came at the hands of fanatics who were unwilling to accept the court’s verdict or show mercy for an old man, who had already spent months in prison, despite the fact that he had committed no offence. We have seen such happenings occur repeatedly, with men accused of blasphemy having been killed in courts or in jail cells. Human rights groups have repeatedly established that most blasphemy cases in our country arise as a means to settle petty scores — over property, over business or over other matters. This trend continues. Trifling attempts to improve matters have failed, and it seems that swift change is unlikely. Certainly, too little is being done to bring this change about, which is why we continue to see tragedies of the kind most recently enacted in Sheikhupura, with Maulvi Waqas and his accomplice, who shot Iqbal, having so far escaped arrest — like so many others responsible for similar crimes in the past.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 18th, 2012.
According to the family of the victim, octogenarian Iqbal Butt, the accusation of blasphemy arose after a sharp verbal exchange between him and the cleric Maulvi Waqas, the khateeb of the local mosque; as has happened time and again before, protests by local clerics who were instigated by Waqas, led to charges being brought against the old man, which in turn led to his arrest. After hearing the case, he was found innocent by court, while a committee of ulema in Sheikhupura — who examined the matter — reached precisely the same verdict.
Despite all this, Iqbal Butt suffered the ultimate punishment — death. It came at the hands of fanatics who were unwilling to accept the court’s verdict or show mercy for an old man, who had already spent months in prison, despite the fact that he had committed no offence. We have seen such happenings occur repeatedly, with men accused of blasphemy having been killed in courts or in jail cells. Human rights groups have repeatedly established that most blasphemy cases in our country arise as a means to settle petty scores — over property, over business or over other matters. This trend continues. Trifling attempts to improve matters have failed, and it seems that swift change is unlikely. Certainly, too little is being done to bring this change about, which is why we continue to see tragedies of the kind most recently enacted in Sheikhupura, with Maulvi Waqas and his accomplice, who shot Iqbal, having so far escaped arrest — like so many others responsible for similar crimes in the past.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 18th, 2012.