Flogging – real or fake (II)

LONDON: I am shocked to read Awab Alvi’s article where he tried to suggest that the video of the girl who was flogged in Swat last year was fake. A news anchor, when the video came out in the media last year, asked Muslim Khan for his comments and this is what he had said: “The incident is an old one… but whatever the Taliban did the punishment was correct. It shouldn't have been done on the road but in private. The punishment given is mandatory.” He was asked if the men who held the girl as she was flogged were ‘mehram’ and he said that they were indeed her family members. A bit later he suggested that the girl should have been stoned.

He had also said that the girl’s father-in-law had been flogged as well. Never during the interview did he say – directly or indirectly – that the video was staged and that the incident fake. Why are the people of Pakistan so naïve and innocent that they don’t believe – with all the evidence at hand – that the Taliban can in fact do barbaric acts? Have not their suicide attacks killed and maimed thousands of Pakistanis? Why is it so hard for us to believe that they wouldn’t flog a girl?