Paranoid schizophrenia is a chronic mental disorder wherein a person looks quite normal but loses touch with the reality around him/her. Some patients hear voices or sounds that are not really present. Others face paranoid delusions such as everyone is out to cause them harm, few face delusion of grandeur letting them to believe of their fame, wealth, relationship with famous persons, superior qualities such as ability to fly etc. A dual national British–Pakistani, 70, who had been suffering with paranoid schizophrenia since 2010 traveled to Pakistan to meet family friends and relatives. During his stay he wrote few letters claiming to be a prophet. His claim was promptly reported to authorities and he was booked under the country’ blasphemy laws. Early this year a Rawalpindi court found him guilty, ignoring his mental disorder and sentenced him to death. Since then he is languishing in jail, waiting to be hanged to death. Few weeks back an armed policeman entered the Pakistan’s prestigious high security Adiala jail, reached up till his solitary confinement death cell and shot him, injuring him critically but was unable to kill him.
Let’s ignore how a policeman carrying a 30-bore handgun and a dagger entered a high security jail and how come he was permitted to attack the victim; my question to all those who persuaded blasphemy case against him and those who sentenced him to death — in real life who is suffering with the paranoid delusions?
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia