And, they burnt him alive – Shafiq Solangi

And, they burnt him alive

By – Shafiq Solangi

Every time I read about crucifixion I ask myself that how could Romans kill Jesus so brutally? How could men behave like animals to kill a person? How could a man kill another with no mercy and humanity?  If human is superior creation of its creator - what makes it different? And, I end-up with many such unanswered questions.

On January 21^st, 2012 when the Sindh was celebrating cultural ‘Topi Ajrak’ day – some people were busy in torturing an unknown person at Sita Village, a small village in Dadu district.

The day was marked to convey the world that Sindh is the land of peace, and Sufism, and the Indus is the proud civilization where people live with peace, love and tolerance since thousands of years. The day when people were chanting the slogans’ of Hosho and Hemoon - these villagers were butchering an unknown accused man. The day when our scholars were talking about message of peace given by Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, Sachal Sarmast and Saami - one mob was busy there in killing a human being.

When a friend texted me about this I was shocked to know that such inhuman incident could happen in Sindh, and in village very near to my own village. I was thinking wither this has happened in Afghanistan or in Sindh because I have never heard such incident had happened in Sindh before.

Later, I learnt that around 1:00am at the night watchman of the village saw some smoke in the Mosque, he called other villagers and when they went inside the mosque they saw something was burning and a man was sitting near. Those who entered into the mosque first saw that the man was burning the copies of Quran and the pictures of Quranic verses. They caught him - beat him and then hand over to the Rajo Dero police station near village. Police lodged First Investigation Report (FIR) against him under Sections 302 and 353 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

This was fine, he desecrated holy book - you beaten him and handed over to the police. Now, let the law decide in what conditions he did all that - and why. Unfortunately, this didn’t end here. 

Around 9:00am crowd gathers outside the police station and demanded that man be given to them. When police refused, they raided the police station, beaten police officers and snatched their weapons. They took unidentified accused person into their custody and throw him down form three story building of the Rajo Dero police station. He was dragged down by the mob from police station to the Village bus stop where he was fired with fuel and burnt till death around 10:30am.

Ask the villagers and then will tell one thing this about this unknown person very surely that he was mentally disturb, an insane person. Infect a normal person will never set on fire religious books and watch them burn. Instead of sending him to the mental hospital he was beaten up and dragged to the police station – and consequently was burnt alive.

Now, the question arises that is this the way to punish any accused? Who will decide the life or death of an accused, the law or the single Pontius Pilate? Who has authorized these people to decide and kill such accused? Why our state machinery is so inefficient and powerless - while these mobs so powerful? Even if this unknown person had desecrated holy Quran – who was authorized to investigate the truth and punish him, the courts or the crowd?

This incident is alarming for our law and order agencies, courts - and for we the people. Religious extremism and religious intolerance has engulfed our society where people are killed and burnt alive in the name of religion. Now when all this has happened, I am thinking who among these was real mentally abnormal, the person who burnt the holy Quran or the people who burnt this unknown person alive.  

Janay kab kon kisay maar de kafir keh kay

Shehr ka shehr musalman hua phirta hay.

Shafiq Solangi tweets @shafiqsolangi