Newsweek’s September 3 issue was released by the Karachi customs only after a  news story on Dr. Shaikh Mohammed Younus’ conviction in a blasphemy case was removed from the American newsweekly on the orders of an information ministry official.  The official contended that this action was necessary in order not to ‘annoy’ the mullahs.

     Does this mean that henceforth General Musharraf’s government will be pandering to the whims of zealots like the ones who stood outside the Adiala jail, fully armed, to pressurise the judge into awarding the death penalty to Younus who, by most accounts, is not guilty of the charge of blasphemy.

       The nation has been a witness to the fanaticism of this self-righteous brigade.  They gunned down a Lahore High Court judge for daring to overturn a death sentence awarded to two Christians by a lower court and shot dead another two people charged with blasphemy, even before the court had pronounced them guilty.   Through their links within the army, they are believed to have forced General Musharraf to backtrack on the proposed procedural changes in the controversial blasphemy law.  Further, they have refused to have their accounts audited, refused to follow the government’s edict on collecting donations and have repeatedly targetted women activists and NGOs who are working in the field of female literacy.

     And yet the government has chosen to kowtow to this breed of mullahs who have robbed Islam of its true spirit and reduced Islamic discourse to the level of beards, burqas and bullets.  Allah, the Holy Quran itself states, is All-Forgiving and All-Merciful, so what Islam is this that they preach, of intolerance and hatred.

     Sectarianism continues to take its toll, its most recent victim being the 75-year-old Hamid Rizvi, brother of one of Karachi’s most well known eye surgeons, the late Dr Rizvi; he was shot dead in Karachi’s upscale Zamzama neighbourhood.  Three others were gunned down in Karachi, the same day, motives unknown.

      Karachi’s cycle of violence has assumed nightmarish proportions.  Everyone  calls the shots – and yet no one is in charge.  And irony of ironies: gangsters enjoy the protection of the authorities.  One classic example is that of Mumbai’s most wanted mafia don, who has shifted base to Karachi, and is allegedly being provided round-the-clock armed protection by an intelligence agency.

      Is there any hope for Pakistan?

      Even as a 23-year-old lawyer, fresh from Lincoln’s Inn, is kidnapped for ransom and poisoned to death, a 23-year-old, the  son of a KESC official who was gunned down, allegedly by an ethnic party, returns home after completing his studies and joins the police force to fight back and change the system.

     A voice of courage in times of despair…