Amidst the debris of smashed pieces of furniture, a shattered TV and broken doors, lies a twisted, mangled child’s bicycle. The sight leaves Qasir Pervez Masih teary-eyed. “My nine-year-old son loved this bicycle. He cried so much when he saw the damage,” says Masih, a resident of Jaranwala’s Christian Colony, in east Pakistan’s Punjab province.
On August 16, Masih’s colony and surrounding areas, including several churches and even a cemetery, were vandalised by a Muslim vigilante group on charges of blasphemy. A human rights report said that 10,000 people hid in the nearby sugarcane fields while the mob ransacked over 20 churches and 400 homes.
Masih and his brother had completed construction work on a new kitchen just days before trouble broke out. At 6am on August 16, his mother who was out for a morning walk found a large group of people gathered around the area shouting and claiming that the Quran had been desecrated.
She hurried back to warn her family who decided to make a run for it. Masih made multiple trips taking long circuitous routes, first putting the five children, and then his wife and elders on his motorcycle. Though the 11-member family is safe, their home and belongings have been destroyed.
“We have nothing left. Not only are our valuables like jewellery and money missing but the mob destroyed what they could not take. They even broke the bathroom faucets,” he says.
At the root of the problem is misuse of Pakistan’s blasphemy law. Director of a non governmental organisation (NGO) working with the Christian community, who did not wish to be named, says that this law has been used by extremists to settle scores, by land sharks to get people to vacate land or as a tactic to terrorise minorities. There is also caste discrimination at play. Many Christians and Hindus belong to socially and economically backward communities, working as manual scavengers and labourers. They are seen as easy targets.
Under the blasphemy law — or section 295 C of Pakistan’s penal code — minimum penalty is a mandatory life sentence while the maximum penalty is death. In 1990, the country’s federal sharia court ruled that the death penalty should be mandatory, and the law declared as a divine decree.
A report by the Centre for Social Justice says that at least 1,949 persons have been accused of blasphemy between 1987 and 2021. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that 55 individuals have been detained or imprisoned on blasphemy charges in Pakistan in 2023.
“Mere accusations of blasphemy have incited mobs to violence against members of minority communities and those with differing beliefs. Though the government has publicly condemned mob violence, it has done little to protect religious minorities or provide justice,” the report says.
Christian group Minorities Alliance of Pakistan leader Akmal Bhatti blames the far-right political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik for inciting the mob. “It was a targeted attack on the Christian population to create fear and loot us. This is a failure of the state.” Bhatti has demanded security for minorities and action against the culprits.
The Punjab government has appointed 10 joint investigation teams to probe the incident and the police have filed FIRs, arresting over 140 people. The incident has been condemned internationally as well. “The lack of prosecutions of those responsible for such crimes in the past emboldens those who commit violence in the name of religion,” says Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Just take the case of Faraz Pervaiz, 35, who has been on the run for the last decade due to blasphemy cases filed against him in Pakistan. He has multiple bounties on his head to the tune of $400,000. Pervaiz and his father Pastor Roshan Pervaiz were involved with the Hallelujah Evangelistic Association in Lahore and would raise funds for the underprivileged in their community. Pervaiz claims he and his father were entrapped in a fake cheque case after they refused to honour Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed with a peace award. Pervaiz spent a year in prison.
When he was released for lack of evidence, a case of blasphemy was slapped on him in 2013 and his home attacked. In 2014, Pervaiz fled to Thailand where he now lives with his family. “But there is no peace. There is a bounty on my head so I never know who might recognise and attack me here,” he says. His children do not attend school out of fear, and he has been attacked in Thailand twice.
Among the most prominent cases was the assassination of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer by his bodyguard in January 2011. His bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri disagreed with Taseer’s opposition to the country’s blasphemy laws. Following the assassination, any attempt to reform the law has bitten dust.
Nida Kirmani, sociology professor at the Lahore Institute of Management Sciences, says even speaking about reforms is considered blasphemous. “Anyone who does so is subjected to an organised public campaign, and it has only become much worse in recent years,” she says.
