One thing is clear: there are no facts in the Sabeen Mehmud case, and there probably never will be. The protests, the demands for a public enquiry, the Sindh government in a frenzy asking that the murderers be brought to justice in three square days, and the intelligence services extending their full support to a crime case is quintessential of a few recent spades of violence, like Model Town, like Hamid Mir, which remain no closer to justice. It’s been played out before exactly the same way; almost eerily so. The state’s strengths in these moments, is to obscure the facts of these “high profile” cases to an unrecognisable extent until the public forgets.
It is not that Pakistan never had a politically aware class before now. It is not that an english speaking, upper middle class never before debated state-sanctioned inhumanity in the press, or in cafes or in their living rooms. It’s just that the armchair activist now has a twitter following of a few thousand, and in the still reasonably insular world of social media, this can create a movement that seems bigger than it is. If twitter activism was so powerful, the PTI would be the party in power, we would all be vegan and there would be no blasphemy law in this country. Social media exaggerates its own service, and everyones believes it. Everyone from the state, the establishment, the opposition, the international community believes, it would seem, in the enormous power of one human rights activist and her brave words on social media, to expose a silent conflict. And so, in the aftermath of her murder, we pay less attention to the facts surrounding the basic crime of her death, and focus on the greater picture that led her to become the victim. We must discard the greater picture.
As we debate Balochistan more and more, as we highlight Mehmud’s great service to her country, and restart the debates on the ideals of freedom, it would be better to remember that this remains a civilian murder case. A crime has been committed and the justice system has to get to work, fearlessly. What are the facts? Who was threatening Sabeen Mehmud? Who followed her? Who were the witnesses? Twitter hashtags and vigils will not bring justice, only closure. And there must be no closure any more. Not until this death is treated as a crime not necessarily in grand terms against all of humanity, but against one innocent Pakistani citizen with parents, with friends, with family, and a whole life stolen from her.