Shoot Someone 'to Save Islam' and Become A Hero in Pakistani Social Media
By
Naila Inayat
30 July,
2020
There’s a
new ‘hero’ in Pakistan. He’s trending on social media, virtual petals are being
showered on him and he’s become the Facebook display picture of many. Even a
leader from the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party hailed him.
Tahir Ahmed Naseem was shot dead inside a courtroom during his blasphemy
trial | Twitter
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Assailant Khalid Khan
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The ‘hero’ is a young man—Khalid Khan—who shot dead Tahir Ahmed Naseem, an accused in a blasphemy case, in a Peshawar courtroom this week. In front of the judge. This is what happens when you weaponise religion for decades.
Also
Read: The Murder of
a Self-Declared Prophet in Peshawar: Why Pakistan Must Repeal Its Blasphemy
Laws
Naseem, an
American citizen who allegedly claimed to be the “last prophet of Islam” during
a discussion with a madrassa student, was booked under Pakistan’s blasphemy law
in 2018. A law that carries a death sentence anyway. Formerly an Ahmadi by
faith and with a reported mental illness, Naseem was one of the many against
whom people in Pakistan are prejudiced. And the law helps.
Khalid Khan
fired at him six times during the court hearing Wednesday and reportedly said
that Naseem was an “enemy of Islam”. Almost immediately, Khalid and his brutal
act were lionised — quite literally because people were posting pictures of him
with a lion in the background. The moth-eaten social fabric of Pakistan can
even condone a killing if it “defends” Islam.
A Legion
of Fans
Many in
Pakistan are justifying Khalid Khan’s crime as an act of bravery, putting up
his photos as display pictures — just to hail a murderer.
Not too far
from the glorification display was PTI leader Haleem Adil Sheikh, who had
apparently put up the killer’s photo with a showering-petals filter as his
Facebook DP. The leader later said on Twitter: “This is to clarify; I
personally don’t manage my Facebook accounts. This was posted without my
knowledge or consent.”
The
Lions
This isn’t
new in Pakistan. This has happened many times in the past — even before
Partition. Take, for instance, the 1929 case of Ilm-ud-Din, an illiterate
teenager who stabbed to death a Hindu publisher, Mahashe Rajpal, for releasing
a book on the Prophet. Din believed that the book, which he hadn’t read, had
hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims. His case was fought by Mohammad Ali
Jinnah, and he was hanged to death. Poet Iqbal, while burying Din, tearfully
said, “The educated people like us just could do nothing, while this carpenter’s
son scored a point.” Today, there is a mausoleum for Din in Lahore and he is
revered as a ghazi (warrior), shaheed (martyr) and a saint.
The 2011
assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer by his own guard, Mumtaz Qadri,
also took place because of a similar streak of intolerance. Quadri was
allegedly incensed because of Taseer’s opposition to the blasphemy law.
Qadri was
executed in 2016, but his funeral was attended by more than a hundred thousand
people in Rawalpindi. Now, Qadri’s shrine in Islamabad attracts many followers.
Even if he was hanged by the state, the duplicity around the issue keeps
breeding more Qadris. And that is how in the Peshawar shooter, Pakistanis
surely see a Din and a Qadri.
Ban and
Blasphemy
Between
1987 and 2017, about 75 people have been killed extra-judicially over mere
accusations of blasphemy. These include — Christian couple Shama and Shehzad
who were burned alive in a kiln in 2014, and Pashtun student Mashal Khan who
was lynched on a college campus in 2017.
Yet, blasphemy
laws continue to be used as a weapon by anyone who wants to overpower and
silence the other. The state has ceded so much space to religious pressure
groups that no one can even debate these laws. As in the case of a professor
from Sindh, Arfana Mallah, who was threatened with blasphemy charges. Her
crime? She supported another teacher, Sajid Soomro, who was booked under
blasphemy laws for having a dissenting opinion.
No space
for critical thinking is allowed when teachers fear ending up like Junaid
Hafeez, a young university lecturer who was sentenced to death on blasphemy
charges last year.
Be it the
Hindu Krishna temple in Islamabad, the row over a gurudwara conversion in
Lahore or the Christian man shot and killed for living in a Muslim neighbourhood
of Peshawar, the increasing fanaticism this year doesn’t move the Imran Khan
government at all.
Despite all
this, the Punjab assembly just passed a controversial bill to protect Islam. In
the garb of religion, the idea is to curtail free thinking. Banning a hundred
textbooks over photos of pigs in a maths question, banning maps showing Kashmir
as part of India, or the wrong birthdates of Jinnah and Iqbal. Then there is a
Punjab Assembly member who wants designer beards criminalised because it is a
sin. And a possible ban on TikTok is always kept handy — a warning was recently
issued to the Chinese app because its content was leading to “extremely
negative effects”. Not too long ago, the PTI wanted a ban on the Japanese
cartoon Doraemon. What did Doraemon ever do to the PTI?
Not only
are these laws, resolutions, calls for bans regressive, but they also remind us
that Zia-ul-Haq may have gone, his ruins are still working overtime.
Naila Inayatis a freelance journalist from
Pakistan. Her Twitter handle is @nailainayat. Views are personal.
Original
Headline: How to become an instant hero in Pakistani social media — shoot
someone to save Islam
Source: The Print
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-society/shoot-someone-to-save-islam/d/122541