Khadim Hussain
June 21 2024
According to local sources, yesterday (on June 20 2024), a tourist in Madyan town of the scenic valley Swat was allegedly accused by some passersby of burning pages of the holy Quran (alleged blasphemy). He was allegedly extracted by the local police, taken into custody and was taken to the local police station. An angry mob gathered at the behest of some religious enthusiasts. The mob entered the police station and set the police station on fire. An exchange of firing occurred. The accused was killed and then taken out to the bazar and burnt down.
The use of wishful interpretation of religion for personal and political interests by anti-democratic forces, facilitation of armed extremist private militias for strategic purposes, instigating stick wielding mobs to bring down an elected government, constructing fanatic discourses in media, indoctrination in educational curricula, teaching bigotry and extremist ideologies in madrassas in Pakistan in general and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in particular for several decades has made a favourable environment for propping up charged mobs. Terror outfits were even used to oust enlightened democratic political parties like ANP from elections (Check the statements of TTP commanders in 2013 and see my piece published in Dawn on May 10 2013 titled ‘A Blood-Soaked Discourse’).
The Muhajirs were turned into Mujahids in 1980s, the Mujahids were turned into Taliban in 1990s and the “good Taliban” gave birth to “bad Taliban in 2000s. These proxy wars generated billions of dollars and Petro-dollars for all the strategists, masterminds, script writers, drug trafficking mafias, gun running cartels, commanders and foot soldiers. In the meanwhile, accommodation for religious, cultural, political, lingual, sectarian, ethnic, national and gender diversity squeezed and shrank to non-existence. A stage has reached when we advocate and plead for minimum ‘tolerance’, the lowest stage in the category of celebration of diversity.
Sectarianism was a natural corollary of these myopic policies. When the otherwise peaceful but majority Brelvi sect and their ambitious clergy saw that the minority Deobandi Wahabi sects wielded political power, collected immense wealth and were closer to the deep state due to their use of violence in the garb of ‘jihad’, they started creating extremist mobs in the garb of ‘anti-blasphemy campaign’ throughout the country and offered their services to the deep state. The deep state used their services in destabilizing the elected governments in Pakistan. Remember Faizabad Dharna by TLP in 2017 against the government of Mian Nawaz Sharif? On April 16, 2024, Dawn reported, “The Faizabad dharna commission, formed to investigate the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan’s (TLP) 2017 sit-in, has sent its report to the federal government recommending, among other things, legislation and drafting of rules and SOPs to regulate the working of intelligence agencies. Sources told Dawn the report also noted that the involvement of the army or its affiliated agency in civilian matters adversely affects the fair image of the institution.”
The horrible lynching in Madyan Swat yesterday (20th June 2024) must be see in this context. Lynching is now made and construed as an acceptable trait of mob psychology on just the accusation of alleged blasphemy. The accusation blasphemy has been duly weaponised. No law, no due process, no court and no fair trial is required. After the TTP, the TLP tactics of spreading fear have perhaps made inroads into the otherwise peaceful and tolerant communities in Pakistan in general and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in particular.
Will FIRs be lodged against those who instigated the mob and also against those who carried out the lynching and set a police station on fire against all tenets of law and religion? In the meanwhile, tourist season in Swat has been duly crippled. Who benefits from the saga?