Mashal Khan’s gruesome mob-lynching
Opposition leader Khurshid Shah, while requesting the government for a strongly worded resolution against the Mardan University incident, disclosed in the National Assembly that 65 people had been killed since 1990 on blasphemy charges by self-appointed vigilantes. The Khyber Pakhtunkhawa IGP has confirmed there was no proof of blasphemy against Mashal, Abdullah or Zubair, and the University authorities should have sought police investigation in the matter. What is most disturbing about the latest horrific incident is that it occurred at a university, an educational stage when students are mature enough to rely on reason rather than gut emotions, to debate and discuss issues instead of taking the law in their own hands like mobsters or professional assassins. That the perpetrators of the crime were fellow students and administrative staff shows the degree of blind hatred and intolerance that has permeated all levels and segments of our society, that if not checked could cause it to split apart and implode. Wild West type lynching and mob justice in the name of religion, often on false evidence and scanty proof, deserve the severest penalty and concerted efforts by the government, the media, and other stakeholders, as well as an urgent sanitising and reform of the syllabus taught right from school.
Every needless and disturbing death, like that of Mashal Khan, produces an equal and opposite reaction, albeit for a short time. But this time, a wide range of voices from across the political and social spectrum, which were fearful, silent or lukewarm in the past, have spoken out in outrage and anguish against the foul deed. The Chief Justice of Pakistan took a suo moto notice of the ghastly murder, Senators, the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and other members, the provincial assemblies, twelve ex-presidents of the Supreme Court Bar Association, joined in the chorus to amend the relevant laws. The Jamat-e-Islami chief too condemned the ‘imbalance and lack of tolerance in society’. The government should belatedly learn from this latest tragedy and pass legislation to pre-empt such conspiratorial deaths in future.