What is this case about? Groping for an answer I went into the maze of rundown streets which is the old locality of Mehra Jaffer just outside Islamabad where this supposed blasphemy occurred, and there met Amad the complainant in this case. In my mind I had imagined the glittering eye of the fanatic. What I found was a friendly guy slightly confused at the sudden attention he was getting. I asked him his education and he said he had studied up to class five, could read a bit but knew not how to write.
Amad runs a CNG car-fitting shop in the G-11 Market. In a room upstairs I sat with him and a few other car mechanics and put a few questions. Amad said he had spotted Rimsha carrying a few burnt pages in a plastic shopping bag which on closer inspection turned out to be pages from the Nurani Qaida, a helpful primer for mastering the Arabic alphabet, preparatory to reading the Quran...pages not from the Quran then, and spotted by a person who could not read.
Forget for a moment the technicalities of what was burnt, I said. Did he think the girl Rimsha had any quarrel with Islam? No, he said, the others too nodding their heads in agreement. So what was all the fuss about and how was the glory of Islam affected? They all looked pretty blank. Had Rimsha meant to hurt anyone’s sentiments? Again silence. Amad looked a well-meaning person but clearly out of his depth.
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Rimsha’s age, whether she is under-age or not, is being cited as grounds for taking a lenient view of the charge against her. But this is to beat about the bush. At issue should be neither her age nor her being afflicted with Down’s syndrome. The thing to determine is whether the inadvertent burning of a text such as the Nurani primer, whether by a mature person or an immature girl, constitutes by any stretch of the imagination an act of blasphemy.
Aasia Bib in Sheikhupura, the case which led to the murder of Governor Salmaan Taseer, was accused of blasphemy in much the same circumstances as are to be found in this case. She is still languishing in prison and brave will be the high court judge who will bring himself to give her any relief. The half-crazed fakir or malang sprung from police lockup in Bahawalpur by an enraged mob and then set on fire was also accused of burning some pages of holy scripture. Where are we heading, and what is this madness we are reaping? All in the name of religion.
And the sorry part is that incidents such as these usually happen in the poorest of localities. Then they are hijacked by muftis and divines sitting in state on television, and what may have begun from small causes is blown out of all proportions and Pakistan becomes a laughingstock once more around the world.
In front of Kazmi’s store I told a group of people that I received six or seven newspapers every day and that often enough in the Urdu papers there were religious supplements with photos of the Kaaba and the Holy Mosque at Medina. When all that newsprint was thrown away did it mean that my household was showing disrespect to the symbols of the faith? This was not blasphemy, they agreed. So how did Rimsha commit blasphemy? No answer.
for your campaign to bash islam have a demonic parallel in your own country that you just see as a unmentionable regular day.
