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June 16, 2006

Pakistan: Muslim Cleric Lynched To Death For Blasphemy

If you want to see Pakistanis act like animals, just tell them a copy of the Koran has been burned. It happened in Sangla Hill last year on November 12, where rumours of Koran-burning led to more than 1,000 Pakistani Muslims attacking a Christian community, destroying three churches, a school, 12 houses and a hostel. It happened again in Sukkur, in Sindh province in southeast Pakistan on 19th February, where a rabble of 400 insane Muslims attacked two churches and a century-old school.

In neither of the above cases was there any evidence of a Koran ever being burned, but it was a good excuse to go and attack the perennial enemy, the infidel Christians. Christians have often been accused of burning or desecrating the Koran.

Traditionally, when a Koran is clapped out, it should be buried in a graveyard (seriously!), or put in a river or the sea. One solution has been provided by a man near Quetta city, who has excavated a massive series of tunnels under the Chiltan Mountains in southwestern Pakistan. Here, old copies of the "holy" book are stored in a repository which has now become a place of pilgrimage.

But it is not always Christians who are caught burning the Koran. In March, an imam from Rawalpindi was caught burning a clapped out Koran, and was immediately arrested and jailed on blasphemy charges.

This imam was lucky. We reported on June 9 of the case of a mentally ill Muslim man who had to be rescued from a lynch mob in Karachi, who wanted to kill him, just because he had trodden on a Koran and tried to burn it. The man was then imprisoned, awaiting charges of blasphemy.

Under the draconian laws on blasphemy, introduced by the Islamist dictator General Zia ul-Haq in 1986, a person can receive the death penalty merely for insulting the paedophile "prophet", or making cartoons of him, under Article 295-C of Pakistan's Penal Code.

For desecrating a Koran, Article 295-B of Pakistan's Penal Code states: "Defiling, etc, of copy of Holy Quran. Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Quran or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable for imprisonment for life."

Yesterday's edition of Dawn exposes the bizarre situation in Pakistan, where a cleric became lynched to death, and charged with blasphemy after his death, yet not a single one of the mob who killed him received any punishment.

The event happened in Bahawalpur state (red on map), on the eastern side of Pakistan, in the community of Choonawala Mandi, near Hasilpur, about 55 miles from Bahawalpur city. The Muslim cleric apparently got caught up in the tension which has recently been simmering between two rival sects of Sunni Muslims.

Hafiz Qamar Javed, the prayer leader of the local Ahl-e-Hadith masjid, or mosque, was apparently seen burning trash near his mosque. This attracted the attention of neighbours, including members of the rival sect. The members of the other sect then claimed that the "rubbish" being burned included pages from the Koran.

Soon, a large mob had been summoned, and they attacked the prayer leader. While the prayer leader was being beaten, the senior imam of the mosque, Master Muhammad Sadiq, arrived and tried to rescue his prayer leader. He too was severely beaten. When both the clerics were beaten unconscious, the mob dispersed.

Police had been called, and in their haste to arrive at the scene, their vehicle hit and injured a 13-year old boy, Muhammad Nadeem. The mob then set about the van damaging it, and also attacked and beat one of the officers, ASI (a middle-ranking officer) Muhammad Nawaz. The police officer received injuries from the attack.

Eventually, reinforcements from Hasilpur town managed to reach the scene outside the mosque, and the injured were taken to Bahawal Victoria Hospital in Bahawalpur city. Master Muhammad Sadiq was in a critical condition, but the prayer leader who had been burning rubbish, Hafiz Qamar Javed, died from his injuries.

In the small town of Choonawala Mandi, the traders were asked by their guild president to show respect and all shops were shuttered up, in protest against the "blasphemous act", states Dawn. It is not clear if the blasphemy referred to the murder of a cleric or the burning of a book.

And in a measure of the actual amount of justice currently available in rural Pakistan, the police registered a case under the 1986 Blasphemy Act against the dead prayer leader and the injured imam who had tried to save him. And no single case was registered against any members of the mob.

UPDATE: News from Agence France Presse via Khaleej Times provides a few more details on the lynchings, provided by a local police chief. The man who came to the rescue of the prayer leader was a retired school-teacher, states AFP, and it was he who was the one who died in the hospital.

The police vehicle had its windscreen smashed. The police chief made no mention of the boy who got hit by the car, but he claimed that both of the individuals who were attacked by the mob (in this account 1,000 strong) belonged to the group Jamaat ud-Dawa (logo, pictured).

We have already reported that Pakistan has refused to outlaw this group, even though it has recently been designated by the US as a terror organisation. It acts as a front for the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (also called Lashkar-e-Toiba, Lashkar-e-Tayba). This group uses terror attacks to intimidate India into allowing its state of Jammu & Kashmir to secede. It was responsible for, among other attacks, the October 29 bombings in Delhi, which killed 59 people.

As we reported on May 21, the headquarters of this group, based at Muridke near Lahore, is used by Gul Khan, a leader of the group, to trade in abducted Christian children, who are kidnapped and sold as slaves.

UPDATE 2: The Pakistan Daily Times repeats the initial claim that the man who died was Hafiz Qamar Javaid (sic), the prayer leader at the mosque, and that the man who tried to rescue him, a retired schoolteacher, is in a critical condition.

Police have now made four cases in connection with the attack. One case is for blasphemy, made against the now deceased prayer leader, and three individuals who took part in assaulting him have now been charged with murder. The Daily Times implies that only three people were involved in the attack.

Keywords: Jamat-ud-Dawah, Jamaat ud-Dawa, Jamaat ud-Da'awah

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at June 16, 2006 2:25 PM

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