In a dreadful incident which took place in the heart of country's federal capital on Monday, a male nurse of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) allegedly raped a girl who was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Initially, on social media, the incident was perceived as just another rape incident taking place in the country until the local media disclosed the name of alleged rapist, Krishan Kumar, which eventually disclosed his religious beliefs. Since then, the issue has taken over social media where unlike the previous rape incidents that have taken place in Pakistan, this time, religious beliefs of rapist have overshadowed the horrific incident which for some people, seems to be the most important aspect of the entire tragedy.
Interestingly, those people of our society who won't stop their 'No Muslim can do this' rhetoric and hashtags of #TerrorismHasNoReligion every time militants explode themselves killing innocent people in the name of religion, not only have the nerve to call a Krishan Kumar, a 'Hindu rapist' but are also complaining why the liberal, progressive section of Pakistani society is reluctant to call him a 'Hindu rapist' as well, when they always call militants of ISIS, Al Qaeda, Taliban, 'Islamist extremists'.
Well, here is to the bigots who are much more interested in the religion of the rapist than fighting the rape culture and suggesting long term solution to counter this curse: people are not calling Krishan Kumar a 'Hindu rapist' because his crime was that of an individual who was not in any way motivated by his religious scripture in carrying out the rape.
A criminal, whether a rapist or a terrorist, when carries out a crime in the name of religion, the ideology is mentioned, because that's what serves as the motive behind the crime. If you won't mention it, you would obfuscate the crime; this is why every time Islamist extremists from ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, or the Taliban kill innocent people, their ideology is mentioned. But when a target killer in Karachi, who is also a Muslim, guns down innocent people, nobody calls him a 'Muslim target killer' while reporting the incident, because he is not motivated by religion.
Hindutva extremists and their ideology were named when Muslim women were raped in Gujarat during 2002 riots because that was a hate crime and the criminals were religious motivated. Did we ever hear anything about religion of culprits involved in Jyoti Singh's, widely known as 'Nirbhaya' rape case? Similarly ISIS's ideology is blamed when they rape women after conquering new territories, but nobody mentioned religion of the people who were involved in Mukhtara Mai's gang rape because they were not religiously motivated.
Yes, religion is certainly mentioned when an imam of masjid or a priest at a church molest or rape kids because both of these figures claim to be representatives of their religion, but repeatedly calling Krishan Kumar a 'Hindu rapist' - when neither was he any pandit who raped a victim in a temple, nor in any way was it proven that this incident was a hate crime where the rapist was motivated by religion - reflects nothing but frustration of some bigots who are always desperately finding an excuse to bash other religions.