“I have wanted . . . to commit a murder myself. I recognized this as the desire of the artist to express himself! . . . But-incongruous as it may seem to some-I was restrained and hampered by my innate sense of justice. The innocent must not suffer  ...”
Thus Regional coordinator for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Rashid Rehman had chosen his own destiny to murder himself with a last-gasp desperate attempt similar to Galileo’s advocacy for his immortal theory incurred the wrath of Pope Urban VIII. Mr Rehman too got perished in footprint of the great medieval scientist by gods of death which have been playing havoc with that kind of tribe. Nonetheless his anticipated assassination leaves trails of questions like which mindset is ready to shoot people dare to voice difference of opinion at any level.
We are living in a strange world where the assassinated point out the killer in his/her life either vocally or in writing in broad daylight. After the death of the victim it happened to raise great hue and cry but all voices die down with the passage of time. Previously similar situation occurred with Benazir Bhutto who charged Pervez Musharraf and one of the top slot PML-Q leader in case of getting bodily harmed by any quarter. Her concerns were later became part of investigation launched basically to cool down anger of the masses resulted nothing is still mystery. Rashid Rehman too met the same fate as he pointed finger at gods of destructions during the life, who wanted to kill him before next hearing of the court if he would not rid of advocating the so-called blasphemous person. The attack came just weeks after he agreed to defend the case of Junaid Hafeez, a lecturer of Bahauddin Zakariya University got accused of blasphemous act on social media last year. Reports said the accusations were levelled by hardliner university students who had pushed for him to be charged.
Obviously killers of Mr Rehman really got to understand us as ‘who was apostate and who the real believer was’. They know better how to impose their will upon another or others on ground of religion and belief in all areas of public life.
Amidst all there has had been culpable silence from political and civil society, ritualistic remembrances on his death from political and civil society was beyond thinking.
The time is ripe unity of the country instead of metro bus service and construction of development projects should be declared as a National Asset with an objective to create sense of security among the masses and wipe out evil forces.
A cohesive policy of nationalization in line with Pakistan Movement should be launched, focusing one point agenda of Incredible Pakistan among all schools of thoughts. Freedom of expression must be considering backbone of a civilized society as fundamental part of democracy. How come there be democracy if freedom of expression gets least place to work. Centuries ago freedom of speech in Ancient Rome was reserved for those in positions of authority.
The writers, intellectuals were punished and sometimes banished if tried to differ with policies of the government. Story of Rome reflects in the country with a twist that extremists are posing threats and later shoot any of their opponents with impunity. The million dollar question is if any government can fix monthly scholarship for family of a declared terrorist, can it not support family of the victim who laid precious live for the cause of humanity. Till what time innocent people of the country be overwhelmed by handful of extremists? Tellingly if their voice gets suppressed or goes unnoticed, Pakistan will have to pay more heavy prices than bearing isolation for polio outbreak. Finally the grief and mourning is not limited to martyrdom of Rashid Rehman, there are many belonging to this clan waiting for justice spending life in miserable circumstances in different parts of the country.–Salman Raza