A few kilometer from the place in Lahore where in 1940 Muslim League demanded partition of British India to create a homeland for minority Muslims – Pakistan, a charged mob of thousands of people chased local Christians out of their homes and later looted and burned their homes to ashes. Is history repeating itself? Should the minorities in todays’ Pakistan demand a separate homeland for themselves?
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif took immediate notice of the incident and set up a 5-member committee to look into the matter. He also announced that no one would be permitted to destroy the religious harmony in Punjab. While appreciating CMs’ noble statements may I ask Mr Sharif whether the miscreants will require his permission to harm the minorities in his province? We understand that the CM was forced to issue the statement as we are now in election year, but otherwise what happened in Lahore on March 09 is not different from the ugly events in Gojra in 2009.
Dear CM, how many miscreants, as you like to call them, were charged and put behind bars for looting and murdering the Christians in Gojra? Where was CM when another mob of fanatics in November last year attacked and burned down and vandalised a girls school in Lahore; the schools’ 77-years-old principal was booked in a blasphemy case over a piece of homework issued by a teacher. Has the CM taken any action against the mob who lynched and burnt alive a deranged person for alleged blasphemy? What about action against the killers of an 80-years-old Iqbal Butt who was acquitted by court in a blasphemy case? Killers of HR minister Shahbaz Bhatti vanished without a trace. Convicted murderers of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer couldn’t be punished, thanks to Superior Court while Aasia bibi’ appeal against her conviction has been pending for the last two years. Who will trust the CM while his people are working overtime to purify the country, to make it literally a ‘Land of the Pure?’
MASOOD KHAN,
Saudi Arab, March 10.