Adil Najam
Report from News (21 February, 2007):
A fanatic shot dead Punjab Minister for Social Welfare Zill-e-Huma Usman “for not adopting the Muslim dress code” at a political meeting here at the PML House on Tuesday. A party worker caught the accused, Maulvi Sarwar, and handed him over to the Civil Lines Police. Huma was at the PML House to hold an open Kachehry. As she was busy meeting the PML women activists, the accused sitting in the audience approached her with a pistol and pumped bullets into her head from a point-blank range… The accused, M Sarwar Mughal - popularly known as Maulvi Sarwar - is a resident of Baghbnapura in Gujranwala. Two police stations of Gujranwala and the Tibbi police of Lahore had booked Maulvi Sarwar for the murder of six women, but he was acquitted for want of sufficient evidence. His alleged spree of killing “immoral” women started in the year 2002. In his confession statement before the police on Tuesday, he said he was opposed to women holding public office. He added that after he read in the newspaper that the minister was holding an open court, he decided to kill her.
Sometimes you just wonder why! Sometimes you just want to give up!
I have been feeling sad and numb and down and dejected all day. I heard about the brutal murder of Punjab Minister Zile Huma Usman’s murder by a crazed fanatic some 10 hours ago. And I have been in utter shock.
I have tossed and turned. I had thought earlier that I would not even write about it. What is the use? When a society goes so mad that a woman is killed just because she is a woman, what can a blog post do. Just ignite more silly debates; more childish heckling; more immature point-scoring; trying to show how smart you are; or, more likely, trying to show how idiotic others are; reaffirming your own belief that you are always right, and everyone else is always wrong; single-track chest thumping; self-righteous finger-pointing. No remorse. No compassion; not a word of sympathy; not a shred of caring. All there is, is anger; getting high on our own anger; anger for its own sake; getting so very angry that you even forget what or who you are angry at.
But now I do want to write about this. We, as a society, have some serious thinking to do.
What killed Zille Huma Usman? Not religion. Not madness. But anger. Uncontrolled anger.
A society that seems to be fueled by anger. No conversation is seen to be legitimate unless it is an angry conversation. And the solution to everything seems to be violence. ‘Kill the infidels’ say the believers. ‘Kill the mullahs’ shout the modernists. ‘Hang them by the gallows.’ ‘Put them in boats and let them sink.’ ‘Death is what they deserve.’ We have heard it all right here. I suspect we will hear it again. That dastardly, self-righteous anger. This violence in the language, as Zille Huma so tragically found, becomes the violence of bloodshed all too easily. Today it was in the name of religion. Tomorrow it will be something else.
So, do me a favor folks. Give her some dignity. Hold your anger. Think about what happened. Ponder. And pause. For the sake of whatever is sacred to you; please pause!
An innocent woman’s life has already been taken by our inability to put a lid on our passions and our anger. Let us please not make a tamasha out of her death by making her a poster child for whatever ’cause’ we are parading for right now.
Bought off the press — really? that is news to me — i dont remember being paid anything or even offered by anyone — oh shoot
lahori — i am sorry but a court would have seen it as an accident — speeding may be deliberate but deaths caused by speeding at most are equated by the courts with manslaughter not murder — also i am not sure if the press will or will not forget but i get the distinct feeling that most of the interactors here (majority i presume expats) are expecting the press to do something that is not really its responsibility — i have a conflict of interest myself because i am a journalist but the press (english one specifically) does quite a bit but it seems pakistanis can never be satisfied on that score
more importantly i wonder if civil society will forget this — that’s more crucial than the press forgetting
MQ — i dont know what happened in that case but i presume lack of eyewitnesses would have meant that the woman is probably not in jail and probably some driver would have taken the blame — like i said where r the witnesses when you need them to come and testify in court — i wonder how many of you here would do that if it came to that - very easy to talk on a blog by the way
It is not relevant to this post but, since we are once again discussing the “Nirala kid”, I would like to know what happened to the kid who was run over in Islamabad by a federal minister’s car driven by a woman. Who was the woman? What happened finally? Did it end in a “muk-muka”?
Omar Quraishi, do you have any news on that?
Omar, yes they are different but only to a little extent. There are two things that are the same. In both cases justice has not been done and in both cases we, espeically the press, will forget soon. On the Nirala case, I am sorry, you are wrong. It was not premeditated but it was nt an accident because the culprit was already breaking the law with speeding. He killed an innocent kid and then ran away. It is today the biggest joke in Lahore. Everyone knows where he is. And everyone in high society is laughing with the Nirala peple on how they bought off both the law and the press. Not a single mention anywhere in the press about him. In this case also the press will forget. But this time not because some rich kid will buy them off but because of disinterst. Mybe I am wrong, but I was not on teh Nirala case. This time I will again wait and see.
sorry but i dont think the nirala case can be compared with this one — that was an accident and the baby was not strapped in a car seat — unfortunate but such things happens tho the nirala owner should not have been allowed to leave the country (your claim) — what this man did is premeditated murder — also, thats where the media comes in — by keeping the pressure on the govt to do something
I agree with Omer that the best course is for the law to take its course. But as someone said we can have very little faith in that. As was mentioned, the Nirala case is just one example where things were forgotten and the culprit is now enjoying the high life in Dubai and no one, niether police nor press is intersted in doing anything because the criminal is rich and the victim is not. In such circumstances what basis do we have to trust that the law will take its course.
zamanov you can mail them to me at omarr.quraishi@thenews.com.pk
btw those of you who are saying that there has been outcry from the govt or ministers/MPs are reading I dont know what — the NA and Senate have both severely criticised this — and i think rather than issuing yet more hollow statements it would be far better if the government ensures that maulvi sarwar pays for what he has done –
Here is some more of the same. In today’s dawn:
[quote comment="35437"]SANGHAR, Feb 23: The cruel custom of ‘karo-kari’ claimed another two lives when two village girls were dragged in the streets and hacked to death by their uncles, accusing them of having tarnished the family’s honour. The girls � first cousins � were buried without any religious rites and the family declined to accept condolences.
The gory incident took place on Thursday in the village of Allah Bux Brohi, near Shahpur Chakar. The two uncles surrendered to police. They said they had done the right thing and felt no remorse.
They told journalists that they had been informed at about midnight on Wednesday that the girls � Farida, 18, and Hamida, 22 � were missing from their room. They went in search of them and found them in a banana orchard with two men who ran away.
The two uncles have been identified as Khamiso Brohi and Imamdad Brohi[/quote]
In the name of honour two past daughters, two present sisters and two future mothers were slaughtered with all the due dishonour by two honourable uncles of the victims. Maulvi Sarwar murdered one woman in the name of religion.
Is the HONOUR two times more important than the RELIGION?
The following is the news from today’s Daily Times.
[quote comment="35437"] ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly on Friday condemned the Bajaur, Damadola and other such incidents in which innocent women were killed, and declared that the perpetrators of these crimes were not Muslims.
The condemnation came through a resolution that was passed unanimously and was moved by Ayesha Munawar of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). The resolution also condemned the killing of innocent women in other incidents.
Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain objected that the house could not decree (fatwa) that someone was Muslim or non-Muslim, but none of the treasury parliamentarians considered the resolution’s wording, passing it unanimously.[/quote]
Thus the represetatives of the people have saved the HONOUR and the BELEIF of the whole nation by declaring all Women-Killers non-Muslims. If my memory still holds, I remember that earlier during the most secular period of Bhutto a small community was also declared non-Muslim.
Now the question is: Do the Quadyanies and the Women-Killers belong to the same group of non-Muslims.
I will let the in-house Legal Experts and Islamic Scholars ponder over these two questions. It appears to me that in Pakistan
Enlightened=Unenlightened which is a wrong mathematical equation!
Ahsan