Judge Pervez Ali Shah of an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Adiala Jail Rawalpindi, twin city of Pakistan’s capital Islamabd, on Oct.1, awarded a two-time death sentence and a fine of Rs.200,000 (US$2,300) to an Islamic zealot Mumtaz Qadri, 26, the killer of former Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, a Muslim. Mr. Taseer had been demanded changes in the most controversial Islamic blasphemy laws, which were introduced by an Islamic General Zia-ul-Haq in 1980s. According to The New York Times of Oct. 1, rights groups have said the blasphemy laws have been used to persecute minorities, especially Christians.
Qadri, along with many other Muslims fanatics, had a view that Governor Taseer committed blasphemy to opposed the existing blasphemy laws. While human rights activists say that the calling for a repeal of the blasphemy law does not constitute blasphemy.
The ATC court announced in its verdict, during the in-camera hearing in Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi, that no one could be given the licence to kill anyone in any condition, and the killer had committed a heinous crime. Qadri, however, tried to justify his act by stating that he had killed him for supporting Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy.
He has been not only getting support and praise by the Islamic groups of Pakistan but, miserably, some members of civil society are also supporting his action. When he was first brought before a court nine months ago, even many Muslim lawyers showered him with flower petals.
The verdict gave Qadri the right to appeal against the court’s judgment in the high court within seven days.
Taseer’s killing was the most high-profile political assassination in Pakistan since former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto murdered in a gun and suicide attack on a Rawalpindi election rally in December 2007. Governor Taseer was killed by his own official body guard, Qadri, on Jan. 4 this year in Islamabad. He was from Bhutto’s party.
The Islamic parties have rejected the death sentence and organized street protest rallied in different parts of the country, especially in Punjab province. For these parties, Qadri is a hero who killed a “blasphemer.” To hold protest rallies on the main road of Lahore’s (the capital of Punjab) Mall Road, the members of Islamic religious parties defied the government and Lahore High Court orders. However, the local administration failed to disperse the protesters because of the Pakistan Muslim League’s (which has close connections with Islamists) Punjab government’s unwillingness to stop those illegal processions. It is interesting to note that many killers and terrorists, who use the name of religion to justify their inhuman and brutal action, are these parties’ heroes and also by their protest rallies against courts’ verdict, these groups clearly send messages that they do not believe in Pakistan’s justice system, which is generally on their side.
Just hours after the verdict, a protest was carried out in Lahore labeling Justice Shah a non-Muslim and making him the target of filthy outrage. A speaker at the protest offered five million rupees in exchange for the judge’s murder, monthly Newsline Karachi reported.
“The so-called religious clerics always manage to herd the poor and ignorant populace in the name of religion, while silencing any opposition by threatening retribution and dire consequences, Gulmina Bilal Ahmad writes in Daily Times, a Pakistani English newspaper, on Sept. 30, 2011.
According to the daily Independent, London, Farzana Shaikh, a scholar attached to Chatham House and the author of Making Sense of Pakistan, does not think that there is anyone who seriously believes that this sentence will be carried out. She said, “Remember Omar Saeed Sheikh, the killer of Daniel Pearl? He’s untouchable, as I suspect Qadri will be.”
Awfully, the Pakistan People’s Party lead government, which earlier had planned to reform the blasphemy laws, hurriedly dropped the proposals after the murder of its own party leader, Mr. Taseer.