There must have been a time when clichés weren’t clichéd; a time when words now made trite from overuse and insincerity were still powerful and poignant. That time, if it ever existed, has long since passed and the platitudes we are offered in the wake of atrocity are as nourishing, and as transient, as a wisp of smoke that hangs in the air for a moment and then dissipates into nothingness.

And so it was in the aftermath of the Sialkot lynching: it was a ‘black day,’ a ‘test case,’ even a ‘now or never’ moment. And while one would like to believe this, the fact is that we have failed a hundred tests and have had so many black days that we are left with merely a memory of light. As for ‘now or never,’ I feel we can safely assume it’s always ‘never.’

Thus far, the state has certainly talked a great game. From the COAS and the Prime Minister, all the way down the ladder, we have seen condemnation of ‘vigilante’ justice and from the Ulema, as represented by Tahir Ashrafi and others, there came a reiteration that killing a person over unsubstantiated accusations of blasphemy was not permissible and that, given that the courts had the authority to punish such perpetrators, one must not ‘take the law into one’s own hand.’ The misuse of the blasphemy law, they stated unanimously, must be ended.

This may not seem like much, but in a country where critique of the blasphemy law is akin to blasphemy itself (this is what Salmaan Taseer was killed for), the very mention of ‘misuse’ does have some significance. Proponents of the blasphemy law argue that in its absence people would take it upon themselves to hunt down and punish (in this case murder) alleged blasphemers and so the law works to prevent that from coming to pass. If that is indeed the case then one must ask why, from 1987 to date, some 80 people have been killed over blasphemy accusations.

We must also then ask exactly what course the law follows in those cases that actually get to court.

Just a few days after Priyantha’s murder, the Lahore High Court acquitted blasphemy convict Liaquat Ali, saying that the case against him was clearly a ‘plot’. Ali had been accused of burning pages of the Holy Quran, and the only evidence that was presented against him was a pile of ashes. No lawyer was willing to take his case, and even the state appointed counsel soon stopped appearing in court, leaving Ali to conduct his own defence. As a result, he spent 11 years in jail on what were clearly trumped up charges.

Then there’s Wajih-ul-Hassan, who spent 18 years on death row before finally being acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2019. His crime was refusing to help his employers embroil Mian Tahir Jehangir, the husband of Asma Jehangir in a blasphemy case so that he could be pressurized into giving up ownership of a valuable commercial property that Wajih’s employers had their eyes on. When he refused, he himself was framed for blasphemy as a result of a case filed by lawyer Ismail Qureshi.

We must also then ask exactly what course the law follows in those cases that actually get to court.

Zarrar Khuhro

Qureshi, a strident proponent of the blasphemy laws, was the prosecutor in the 1993 blasphemy case against Salamat Masih, Manzoor Masih and Rehmat Masih. This case started out with a disagreement between 11-year-old Salamat masih and a local boy, purportedly over pigeons, and then escalated into an accusation that Salamat, Manzoor and Rehmat had scrawled blasphemous remarks on the wall of a mosque. All three were arrested, but some people decided not to wait for the verdict and instead opened fire on the three as they left a hearing, killing Manzoor and wounding the other two.

The case continued, and a year later, the two surviving accused were given the death penalty but were subsequently acquitted by a two-member bench including Justice Arif Iqbal Hussain Bhatti and Justice Chaudhry Khurshid Ahmad who ruled that the evidence was flimsy at best. In 1997, Justice Bhatti was assassinated in his chambers.

In that, his fate was similar to that of lawyer Rashid Rehman, who was shot dead in his chambers in 2014 for the crime of defending blasphemy accused Junaid Hafeez. Rehman, who had taken up the case after Junaid’s previous lawyer quit due to multiple death threats.

 Rehman received the same threats, and when he did not back off, he was murdered. Since then, Junaid has seen 8 different judges come and go and still languishes in jail in solitary confinement because to mingle with the other prisoners puts his life at risk.

These are just a few cases that go to show that the argument of ‘letting the law take its course’ ignores the manner in which such cases are conducted and the immense pressure that is mounted on the accused, their families and communities and indeed on the defence lawyers and any judge who actually decides in favour of justice.

The injustice is compounded when we see that no punishment is given to those bearing false witness. We saw this not only in Asia Bibi’s case, but also in the case of Rimsha Masih who was accused of burning pages of the Quran. It later emerged that the accuser, Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti has himself burnt the pages in order to frame Rimsha. He was never sentenced for the act. 

This, then, is how the blasphemy law actually takes course inside legal chambers, and if the state wishes to fix this, it has its work cut out for it. But through it all, no one even dares to ask the most important question of all: what doctrinal evidence is there regarding the punishment for blasphemy in the first place? 

And until this question is asked and answered, until these falsehoods are pointed out, we will simply stumble from atrocity to atrocity comforting ourselves with cliches paving the road to ruin with platitudes.

– Zarrar Khuhro is a Pakistani journalist who has worked extensively in both the print and electronic media industry. He is currently hosting a talk show on Dawn News. Twitter: @ZarrarKhuhro