Sitting ducks

Extra-judicial killings of those accused of blasphemy occur with tragic regularity & warnings are almost always there

After the most recent murder of Zafar Bhatti, a pastor who was jailed because he was accused of blasphemy —murdered by a policeman no less — it seems it is not only the law that works against religious minorities, but the people who are meant to safeguard it as well. It is indeed surreal that policemen, of all people, would take the law into their own hands, and brazenly murder the already-vulnerable individuals, whom they have sworn to protect.

Evidently, the police officer who killed Bhatti and injured another inmate, a British citizen diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia also charged with blasphemy, did not believe that the laws of the state were adequate to deal with the accused men. The matter, then, extends far beyond the bigotry and extremism that necessarily accompanies these murders; it also indicates a crippled and ineffective justice system unable to assert its authority.

That isn’t to say that Pakistan’s laws are adequate themselves; they persecute the weak, the defenceless, the poor, but a better legal system alone cannot save lives if it does not have the personnel to enforce it.

Under such immense pressure, the courts must prove their mettle. Virtually everyone involved — judges who dismiss blasphemy cases, lawyers who defend the accused, the accused themselves — is endangered (Rashid Rehman was killed earlier this year for his role in defending a professor accused of blasphemy) but the state needs to investigate and punish Bhatti’s killer all the same. With all the attention on those accused of blasphemy, the willing executioners tend to escape scrutiny. That must not be allowed to happen.

Also with cases like these, a more responsive warning system is urgently required. Extra-judicial killings, especially of those accused of blasphemy, occur with tragic regularity and the warnings are almost always there. The victims were threatened by other inmates and police officers for many days before Bhatti was murdered. It should not only have been Bhatti who took those threats seriously.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2014.

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