Shortly before his brutal assassination, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was invited in a talk show by a female anchor. Taseer had earlier politely declined, and I know his through the first hand knowledge of the event. He had fears that the anchor and channel administration were hand in glove with hardliner mullahs and will try to give an edge to his political opponents through his character assassination.

So prophetic was his thinking. The anchor exerted emotional pressure on Taseer by using her old ties with Taseers and managed to take him live in her show. Despite her promise to Governor Taseer that she will not bring any debaters during the interview, she brought PML heart throb Rana Sanaullah against Taseer. And then both Sanaullah and the anchor vehemently labelled him as a blasphemer.

Taseer’s closest associates till the day believe that the interview played a crucial role in triggering the hate campaign against the slain Governor. And yet only Mumtaz Qadri was hanged for the assassination, despite Qadri himself being a victim of severe brainwashing by Taseer’s political opponents and draconian extremists of Pakistan.

A layman does not know what Salmaan Taseer did exactly. What they do know is that they heard on the TV shows and in sermons that he committed blasphemy. And that’s it. 

This is just a single case study but looking closely into the matter leads us to the deep rooted brain washing by vigilante media and their dreadful allies in Pakistan’s political and military establishment. 

A poor girl dared to raise her head, as Qandeel Baloch did, in our mullah dominated, patriarchal, misogynistic, polarized and communal society. She became the victim of the same evil. There might or might not be some protests over her killing and the society will settle in a few days to the conclusion that her brother killed the poor girl.

It’s an open and shut case of honor killing, the same issue on which a war had been launched by the keyboard mujahids against Shermeen Obaid-Chinoy for making a film and winning an Oscar and a lot of praise. Now nobody will question the so-called anchors or media outlets who since her revelation of Mufti Qavi’s absurd character put her in the crosshairs.

Nobody will say they had got nothing to do with the personal life that poor girl or any individual per se.

Nobody is going to shout out loud to this bunch of sharks that we know their game that they were actually serving Molvi Qavi and his horde by destroying a little girl could not grasp the simple fact that she could not take liberties in a society where governors and PMs are crucified for merely trying to mess with the parasites who claim to hold the keys to paradise.

Nobody will tell them that we know that their game is not only about TRPs and ratings and that all these well polished faces behind the masks are also abettors and followers of the same evil. 

We know they are eloquent but virulently, they are sensible but unwisely, they are smart enough to increase their ratings but egotistically; above all they are everything but responsible. Their happy-go-lucky nature put innocents’ life at risk and lamentably they are still proud of calling themselves humans. Ultimately they are also the type who love to coin fatwas out of the thin air.

It is the nature of this society that nobody would have given a darn if the poor girl were selling herself day and night to make ends meet; but her crime was to poke fun of the sacred cows in the land of believers. She chose to fight this vicious mindset instead and stood for herself. When a mullah wooed her she made it public to show us how hypocritical these man are. They love to see women behind the door but afraid to acknowledge her existence outside the same door.

I wonder in which capacity certain media houses launched a public trial of the deceased. Who burdened them with responsibility of purifying the society by touting innocent people as ‘blasphemers’, ‘characterless’, ‘uncouth’ and ‘vulgar’. If an innocent is dead today does it not make such accomplices guilty?

Through their art of abetment they decide what to see and how to perceive anything. This is for the sake of keeping the clergy’s reputation intact.

She was a harmless girl, not a criminal. Then why did she receive the treatment of a criminal or rather worse?

She was forced to accept her first marriage, her boy, her affairs, and every single bit of her life, but when she told the truth with proofs about Mufti Qavi we did not believe her. Because the media deliberately painted her as a fraud.

Profiling of people and vicious propaganda campaigns is nothing new, but our establishment has taken that to another level. Isn’t it intriguing that the whole nation now considers Taliban their enemies whereas the same creatures were earlier tagged as heroes and saviors of ummah?

Don’t let these culpable people play with your fears. There is no honor in honor killing and there should not be any honor in being an accomplice to it. It’s a game of awareness. We might have been kept ignorant but we have not lost our conscious yet.

It is high time to call forth the public opinion against such evils that are trying to derail the sanity with their self-interests.

Now we can’t bring poor Qandeel back who used to please us with her stupid jokes. But at the very least, instead of cheerleading for her cruel brother we should all ensure that her killer must swing like other killers do.