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.
Well Quraishi sahab, if indeed there was an article on the above subject, my apologies, perhaps you’d be kind enough to provide with a link since I do not get hard copies of Paki newspapers in my neck of the woods. As far as gathering evidence and investigation is concerned, I understand the law will take its due course and I was not exactly looking forward for the news of his execution. I just wanted to know if those previous murder cases would be reopened and the people who payed “khoon baha” on his behalf would also be interrogated. I guess I am asking too much!
Omar R. Quraishi
Omar deserves our respect,,,,,,,,Lahorijee, let us not demand too much from him !
I am facing litigation for the last 14 years and I know where the shoe pinches ! Omar is very correct when he exclaims, “”or you want the guy to be hanged the next day?””
what can i say pakistanian — you need to read the papers more carefully and you also need to understand that presenting an accused before a court, gathering evidence and investigations take time — or you want the guy to be hanged the next day?
[quote comment=”35927″]I agree with Yasser. The quality of the op-ed pieces in The News has gone up. [/quote]
Since Omar has started visitng ATP? ;)
Since you guys are arguing about the press following up with the news or otherwise, any news about the arraignment of this Molvi Sarwer guy, I thought he was suppose to be presented before a judge a couple of days ago, I haven’t seen anything in our newspapers yet, oh well perhaps some other important story came up and since this is old news now, so who cares. Cheers