Indian Defence Review

Mashal Khan, a student of Journalism, in his early twenties, was attacked and killed by a vigilante mob at the Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan (Pakistan) in the broad daylight few days ago. He was dragged out of his hostel room, stripped, beaten, clubbed and then shot dead. There are visuals of people kicking and throwing stones at his bloodied, lifeless and naked body. The mob continued to attack his dead body till the police arrived to take custody of it. On the basis of hearsay, Mashal Khan was accused by the mob of promoting the Ahmadi faith on the Facebook, thereby, guilty of blasphemy.

Though there are now talks of constituting a judicial enquiry into this case and few arrests have also been made, the root cause of this problem lies much deeper into the religious cum political cum legal arrangements of Pakistan. The dialectics of this horrific incident can be understood in a background that revolves around the binary of vigilantism on one hand and a complete resignation of the State in the matters of enacting and enforcing the blasphemy laws on the other hand.

The vigilante groups are often the offshoot of the extra-legal superior consciousness whereby people tend to believe that certain issues are above the Rule of Law and beyond the purview of constitutionalism. Such matters, therefore, need to be resolved as per their own flawed judgments / discretions or as per the dictates of the conveniently interpreted religious scripts by the priests and ulemas. The ignorance plays a big role as there are many who have great passion for religion but very few possess the knowledge of the religion. These invariably lead to the incidences of vigilante justice as happened with Mashal Khan.

The worrisome aspect of the above incident is the ever increasing phenomena of mob justice and the tendency of taking law into the hand in Pakistan. There are other countries too, facing this menace of the growing instances of vigilantism. However, the case of Pakistan is different. There is a loss of faith in the lackadaisical prosecution by the State machinery and by extension in Rule of Law. The State of Pakistan seems to have conceded it by going for military courts. In Pakistan, the vigilantism has a tacit support of theocratic elements of the State system and also of some schools of thought whereby killing of a nonbeliever is not a crime. The widespread narrative of vigilantism in Pakistan is that such an action, though prohibited under the law of land, may still have the sanction in scriptures. The nation’s Parliament declares Ahmadis as non Muslims, then what wrong is committed if any Ahmadi is killed by the mob? When the legislature shows the mob mentality by passing barbaric laws, the mob itself can be no different. It too will commit barbaric acts.

The stream of intolerance in Pakistan flows and gets legitimized from the Constitution of Pakistan itself. Article 2 of the Pakistan’s Constitution says that Islam is the State religion. Article 31 declares that it is the country’s duty to foster the Islamic way of life and as per Article 33, it is the country’s duty to discourage parochial, racial, tribal, sectarian, and provincial prejudices among the citizens. It can be seen that there is a complete sanction for the radicalization of Pakistani society by the Constitution itself.

In a desperate attempt to fight the movement for the restoration of democracy Zia Ul Haque started the appeasement of Muslim hardliners in his later years. He knew that religion could be a very useful tool of control. Pakistan’s laws, therefore, became particularly severe between 1980 and 1986, as a result of number of amendments to Islamize the laws and to deny the Muslim identity to Ahmadis minority. Zia Ul Haque also introduced the amendments into the blasphemy laws in the Pakistan Penal Code by introducing Sec 295 (C) whereby the punishment for blasphemy was only death.

The Blasphemy Law (Sec 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code) reads:

“Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”

The law prescribes a fixed death penalty for all those who are found guilty. The option of life imprisonment was made defunct after a 1991 Federal Shariat Court judgment.

As per Article 203 (D) of Pakistan Constitution, the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) is a religious body which rules on whether any particular law is repugnant to the injunctions of Islam. If a law is repugnant to Islam, “the President in the case of a law with respect to a matter in the Federal Legislative List or the Concurrent Legislative List, or the Governor in the case of a law with respect to a matter not enumerated in either of those Lists, shall take steps to amend the law so as to bring such law or provision into conformity with the Injunctions of Islam”.

In October 1990, the FSC ruled that Sec 295-C was repugnant to Islam by permitting life imprisonment as an alternative to a death sentence. A Bishop, by the name of Dani L. Tasleem, is reported to have filed an appeal in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which has the power to overrule the FSC. In April 2009, the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court considered and dismissed the appeal because the appellant did not pursue it as he was not alive. As of now in Pakistan, the law of land is death for blasphemy.

There were only 7(seven) cases of violation of blasphemy laws prior to 1987 when the provisions were lenient. The number of violations increased to 1335 between 1987 to 2014 when the punishment was death only with no pardon possible. This period also witnessed a sharp increase to vigilante justice. Before 1987, there were only two reported cases of extra judicial killing in Pakistan on the accusation of blasphemy. After 1987, the number has gone to 57 and still counting. It also shows the exponential increase in blasphemy cases over the past two decades. It is obvious that either people have become a lot more blasphemous, or there is an inherent capacity within the law to be used as a weapon of persecution. It is not known as to how many accused of extra judicial killings in the name of blasphemy have been brought to justice. The number must be negligible and that could be one of the reasons of the radicalized vigilante groups taking the law in their hand.

A country that was created because of religion, where 96% population is of Muslims – why does it need the blasphemy law at the first place? Islam as a religion cannot be tarnished by few words from any non-believer who so ever he or she may be. The respect for the Islam and its practices comes naturally in Pakistan and it is already there. Then why to execute people – judicially or extra-judicially?. Apparently the purpose of blasphemy laws is more political and it is to appease the theologians. Since the religion played the main part in the creation of State, the religious leaders will always have a big say in the system. This is the hazard of creating nations on religious ground.

Also, it is to target minorities of institutionalized persecution. Out of 1335 blasphemy cases in Pakistan so far, 52% of these cases have been prosecuted against 4% of the population consisting Hindus (21) Christian (187) and Ahmadias (494).

The contemporary Islamic Scholars in Pakistan are debating whether or not pardon is possible for blasphemy. The old scripts and fatawas from different school of thoughts are open for debate. But the predominant public narrative on blasphemy is that those who speak for lenient blasphemy laws and waiving of the death penalty are seen to be speaking from borrowed western ideology and thus do not command the authority. They are small ineffective and insignificant voices in Pakistan.

Sec 295 (C) looks like a sacred statute that no one is capable to touch. Pakistan had tragically allowed itself to be the among the most barbaric and backward countries by enacting such a hateful and vengeful law when it was under army rule. Now to be able to stand in the community of civilized democratic nations and to redeem its identity as a progressive society, it must get rid of such laws.

Pakistan must realize that God does not need legislative protection, we all need His blessings and protection.