Pakistan has awarded death to Mashal Khan's killer. When will victims of lynching in India get justice?
Mashal Khan, a 23-year-old journalism student, had been stripped and beaten to death on the university premises for “putting up blasphemous posts on social media”.
On February 7, a Pakistani court sentenced one person to death and five others to life imprisonment for lynching a student accused of “blasphemy”. Twenty-five more people were given three-year sentences for the April 2017 crime.
Mashal Khan, a 23-year-old journalism student, was stripped and beaten to death on the university premises for “putting up blasphemous posts on social media”.
Blasphemy is a very sensitive subject and a criminal offence in Pakistan that can carry the death penalty. Also, mere allegations of blasphemy have often been enough to spark vigilante violence in the Islamic nation.
In June last year, a court had sentenced a man to death for sharing blasphemous content about Islam on social media. Various news reports back then had termed it as the "harshest cyber-crime related sentences handed down" until then in the country. Similar news reports also said the country has never executed anyone convicted of blasphemy.
In 2011, Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, was shot dead by his security guard because he sought to reform the blasphemy law, and the murderer was hailed as a hero by many, including politicians. According to the Pakistani think tank, the Centre for Research and Security Studies, since 1990, vigilantes have been accused of murdering 65 people over blasphemy.
In such a scenario, strict punishment to those who were trying to “avenge a blasphemous act” (by the 23-year-old student) – although the charge was later found to be false – sends out a strong message.
Khan’s case has many parallels with events in neighbouring India that took place in the past few years. The wheels of justice, however, seem to be moving slowly, and often in the wrong direction.
Protests after murder
Khan’s murder was followed by widespread protests across the country, unusual for someone accused of blasphemy. Immediately after the murder, his college, Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan - a district in violence-torn Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a Taliban stronghold - had launched an investigation into his alleged blasphemy rather than the murder. It was reminiscent of lynching incidents in India by cow vigilantes over suspicion of beef consumption, wherein law enforcing agencies found it more urgent to ascertain the fact whether the meat was beef or not instead of identifying the murderers and bringing them to book.
In Mashal Khan's case, however, following public outrage, including over social media, the wheels of justice moved fast, ending with the conviction on February 7.
Mashal Khan was killed because he chose to speak up against the system – three days before he was killed, he had appeared on local television criticising his university administration for poor management, fee issues, and “exploitation” of women. His murderers tried to exploit the country’s sentiments against "blasphemy" to their lethal advantage, anticipating he would not get public sympathy if accused of insulting the Quran or Allah.
To an extent, they were right – on February 9, multiple religious parties gathered in Mardan town to protest against the convictions in the case, and give an “exemplary welcome” to those acquitted.
The Pakistani judiciary deserves to be complimented for ensuring justice to Khan, despite the fact that there have been past instances wherein judges and lawyers hearing/arguing blasphemy cases ended up becoming victims of vigilante violence.
What about Indian victims
Khan’s murder reminds of crimes that we in India have become all too familiar with – mob justice, the likelihood of the state going soft on certain kinds of violence, and exploiting religious fervour to mask a crime.
India has also seen a new kind of blasphemy – statements against the ruling party and its brand of nationalism and religion are “crimes”, deserving of punishment. The state’s response to such crimes is worrisome.
In Uttar Pradesh in September 2015, Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched for “killing a cow and eating beef”. While a Union minister attended the funeral procession of one of the murder accused and his body was draped in the national flag, Akhlaq’s family was booked for cow slaughter. The police later said there was no evidence to establish their alleged crime - of killing a cow.
On April 1, 2017, Pehlu Khan was lynched in Rajasthan by gau rakshaks. Recently, his companions were booked for cattle smuggling. While the men whom Khan had named in his dying declaration were earlier given a clean chit, others who were booked by the police have now been granted bail.
In July 2017, 16-year-old Junaid Khan was lynched in a train. In November, the Haryana additional advocate general resigned from the government panel of lawyers after the judge in the Junaid murder trial said he was seen assisting the counsel for the main accused.
In December last year, again in Rajasthan, Shambhu Lal Regar decided to settle a personal score by packaging a murder as “love jihad" avenging. His supporters later attacked the Udaipur district and sessions court and more than 30 policemen were injured in the ensuing clashes. More than 500 people from across India donated Rs 3 lakh to Regar’s wife.
What's more, trials in the murders of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar (2013) and CPI leader Govind Pansare (2015) in Maharashtra, and of author MM Kalburgi (2015) and journalist Gauri Lankesh (2017) in Karnataka, are yet to reach conclusion.
BJP and Pakistan
The ruling BJP is known for its penchant for invoking Pakistan in a variety of contexts. During the recent Gujarat polls, the PM accused the Congress of joining hands with the neighbouring country to get him "removed" from the way, party president Amit Shah had earlier said firecrackers would be burst in Pakistan if the BJP lost Bihar elections, VK Singh, junior minister in the Ministry of External Affairs, had expressed “disgust” at attending a function at the Pakistani high commission, and Manohar Parrikar, when he was the defence minister, equated Pakistan to hell even as Indian Muslims and "beef eaters" are routinely asked to "go to Pakistan".
Going by the BJP government's singular obsession with Pakistan, may be it will take note of the fact that a country, which finds itself "bound up in a thick sheet of theocracy", managed to ensure justice to the kin of a man who was killed for "blasphemy". One can only hope that it will remind the government of its duty towards its "othered"citizens, increasingly at risk because of statements by the ruling party’s leaders and the administration’s seeming inability to bring to book certain kind of criminals.