Author: The Indian Express
Publication: Najam Sethi
Date: June 18, 2002
If Pakistan wants to defeat its
ghosts, it has to look inside rather than westwards
ON June 11, Muhammad Yusuf, convicted
two years ago of blasphemy by a sessions court, was shot five times in
the chest with a 30 handgun at Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore.
The next day, the press reported
that the gun was allegedly brought into the prison by one of the jail staff
and given to a prisoner on death row. The said prisoner didn't have the
stomach for it, so he passed the gun on to a fellow-convict, Tariq Mota
of Gowalmandi, Lahore, a member of the banned extremist outfit, Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba.
Tariq, after killing Yusuf, shouted "Al-lah-o-Akbar" and declared that
he had done the deed to win eternal salvation. Press reports say that the
sessions judge who gave Yusuf the death sentence in the first place was
a close relative of General Zia-ul-Haq and had made it clear during the
trial that he was moved more by religious passion than solid evidence.
Yusuf appealed against the sentence
in the High Court and his case was pending. Since there were some serious
flaws in the earlier judgment, legal experts had opined that his sentence
would be set aside. Unfortunately, some newspapers began calling him kazzab
(pretender) even before he was convicted and have continued to label him
thus after his murder. All this before his guilt could be conclusively
proved at the High Court.
A few days before Yusuf's murder,
on June 7, a group of lawyers and mullahs nearly came to blows in the Supreme
Court. The Court was hearing a petition filed by the United Bank Limited
against a 1999 verdict banning bank interest. Eminent lawyers Raja Akram
and Raza Kazim appeared for UBL while Ismail Qureshi of the Jamaat-e-Islami
represented the party defending the 1999 verdict. In arguing their case,
the former quoted verses from the Quran. To this, the clerical crowd raised
objections saying Raja Akram was not employing the "right accent" when
quoting from the Quran. They also took exception to the presence in court
of Dr Rashid Jallundhuri, a scholar of Islam. Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the
Jamaat-e-Islami. Engineer Salimullah of the JUP (N), ex-convict Maj General
(retd) Zaheerul Islam Abbasi and Maulana Allah Wasaya were also present.
The defendants' lawyer, Ismail Qureshi, also protested the removal of Justice
Taqi Usmani from the Bench. Matters came to a head and the assistants of
both sets of lawyers came to blows. The court warned the mischief-makers
but took no action, clearly embarrassed by the presence of a powerful religious
pressure group in the court.
It has also come to light recently
that of the 12 high-profile cases of sectarian violence, none was brought
before the anti-terrorist courts after the expiry of the one-month deadline
set for the production of the accused belonging to the banned Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba
and Sipah-e-Muhammad. Earlier, Pakistan's most notorious sectarian killer
Riaz Basra was killed in a "police encounter", which many analysts thought
was stage-managed to avoid bringing the case to court. The reason for this
was not only that the police usually fail to investigate the case but that
the judges at the lower courts are subject to threats from religious organisations,
Scores of highly qualified and public-spirited
doctors have been killed in Karachi by the religious terrorists. Despite
pledges of tough action, the killings have continued and some medical practitioners
have quietly left Pakistan because they know the state's writ does not
extend to those who strike terror in the heart of the nation. Even police
officers have been quoted in the press as saying that they cannot stand
up to the terrorists because the state is unable to protect them. Interior
Minister General (retd) Moinuddin Haider was the only member of General
Musharrafs government who chose to call a spade a spade and spoke put against
the religion? mafias that run riot in Pakistan. His brother was killed
in Karachi. General Musharraf himself was threatened with physical removal
by Maulana Akram Awan of the Tanzim-al-Ikhwan in 2001.
Such is the power of the terrorist
in Pakistan. The elements that the state has unleashed on the nation over
the past two decades now threaten its very existence. The economy is starved
of investments, which have dried up in the face of runaway terrorism in
Karachi, Pakistan's industrial and commercial hub. Wary investors euphemistically
call this terrorism "Pakistan's unsatisfactory law and order situation".
The grounds we of support for General
Musharraf when he first came to power in 1999 had sprung from the citizen's
desire to see the military putting an end to Pakistan's internal anarchy.
Unfortunately, state and society have both become more undermined since
1999 and the country is clearly unable to withstand external challenges
while the government is unable to protect it from internal dangers. As
the Musharraf government faces off with India, it would do well to remember
that the greater challenge is at home. (The writer m editor, The Friday
Times)
