Considering society
The blasphemy issue in particular has played havoc with too many lives.
The time has come to consider the nature of our society and what is happening to it. We appear to have descended into a frenzy of madness and wonder if anyone can save us from it. Certainly, things seem to be getting worse by the day.
The latest evidence of this comes in an incident at the village of Seeta in Dadu, where a man accused of desecrating the Holy Quran was snatched away from police custody and burnt alive by a mob as law enforcers looked on, failing to act to save him. Similar incidents have taken place before. According to the tale told by the prayer leader of the mosque at Seeta, the man had offered evening prayers and then spent the night there. Worshippers arriving for morning prayers, stated they found burnt copies of the Holy Quran, blamed the man for this, handed him over to the Rajo Dero police and lodged an FIR against him. As word of the incident spread, a mob of some 200 collected at the police station, overpowered the six or so policemen posted there, beat up the man and then burned him alive. The SSP of Dadu has said the 10 policemen posted at the station and some 24 villagers have been arrested.
But this will not bring that unknown man back to life. Nor will it prevent other incidents of a similar kind from occurring. It is not just one incident we need to deal with. We need to look at the manner in which our society has contorted, become warped and twisted and figure out how some semblance of normal behaviour can be restored, so that we can crawl back out from the medieval age and re-enter a period where civilised behaviour is practised. This will not be a simple task given how far we have allowed things to disintegrate. The blasphemy issue in particular has played havoc with too many lives. Somehow, things need to be restored and sanity regained but with each passing day, the task seems to become harder and harder to achieve.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 23rd, 2012.
The latest evidence of this comes in an incident at the village of Seeta in Dadu, where a man accused of desecrating the Holy Quran was snatched away from police custody and burnt alive by a mob as law enforcers looked on, failing to act to save him. Similar incidents have taken place before. According to the tale told by the prayer leader of the mosque at Seeta, the man had offered evening prayers and then spent the night there. Worshippers arriving for morning prayers, stated they found burnt copies of the Holy Quran, blamed the man for this, handed him over to the Rajo Dero police and lodged an FIR against him. As word of the incident spread, a mob of some 200 collected at the police station, overpowered the six or so policemen posted there, beat up the man and then burned him alive. The SSP of Dadu has said the 10 policemen posted at the station and some 24 villagers have been arrested.
But this will not bring that unknown man back to life. Nor will it prevent other incidents of a similar kind from occurring. It is not just one incident we need to deal with. We need to look at the manner in which our society has contorted, become warped and twisted and figure out how some semblance of normal behaviour can be restored, so that we can crawl back out from the medieval age and re-enter a period where civilised behaviour is practised. This will not be a simple task given how far we have allowed things to disintegrate. The blasphemy issue in particular has played havoc with too many lives. Somehow, things need to be restored and sanity regained but with each passing day, the task seems to become harder and harder to achieve.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 23rd, 2012.