Once again, we are reminded how far this nation has descended into the abyss. This time the sickeningly familiar ritual of savage violence was enacted in Khanewal district, where a middle-aged man was stoned to death by a mob over alleged desecration of the Holy Quran.
The Saturday incident took place in Jungle Dera village where hundreds of locals gathered following announcements that a man had torn some pages of the Holy Quran and later set them on fire. With no one ready to listen to the suspect, the villagers first hanged him with a tree and then hit him with bricks, until he died.
What followed the grisly murder was predictable: condemnation by the political leadership, with the government vowing to punish the perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law. Meanwhile, Punjab police have said that officials had arrested 21 primary suspects in the case, while a total of 102 have been detained so far and are being interrogated for their suspected involvement.
It is indeed a day of shame for Pakistan. This incident occurs merely two months after the horrific Sialkot lynching incident, where a Sri Lankan engineer was killed by a mob of factory workers on blasphemy charges. That tragedy brought worldwide shame and condemnation for Pakistan, as the government and civil society promised: “never again”. However, barely two months later, we see the same gruesome occurrence.
This shows that the government has misdiagnosed the problem. It is not just “people taking the law into their hands” as the Prime Minister states, there is a problem with how the law allows weaponization and the ease with which it can be misused. This case, along with the other blasphemy allegations, follows the same pattern – the victim is a mentally ill or vulnerable target and the allegations appear to be made from personal vendettas.
Each act of lynching, each desecration of a place of worship, each life destroyed as a result is an indictment of a state that has long made cynical use of religion as part of its playbook. The government must control the loopholes present in the law. We must reverse course before the flames of intolerance devour us as a nation.
