THERE is a devastatingly telling contrast in the outcome of the Joseph Colony incident. On Saturday, citing lack of evidence, an antiterrorism court in Lahore acquitted 115 people charged with torching over 100 houses belonging to Christians in the city’s Joseph Colony. The incident had taken place in March 2013 after a resident, Sawan Masih, was accused of having committed blasphemy the day before. An enraged mob, reportedly 3,000-strong, had rampaged through the locality, ransacking the houses and setting fire to them. The residents, fearing exactly such an attack, had already fled their homes and there was fortunately no loss of life. The case against the alleged perpetrators of this violence made its way through the courts at a snail’s pace over four years during which all the accused were set free on bail. Compare this with the case against Masih, who was put on trial and sentenced to death for committing blasphemy within the space of one year.

We can well imagine the impact of Saturday’s verdict on minority communities in Pakistan. One of their own was handed down the harshest sentence on an allegation made by a single individual, but the police could not gather enough incriminating evidence, nor the lawyers build a prosecutable case, against a mob that had unleashed violence against an entire Christian locality. Moreover, the attack followed a predictable pattern; when a Muslim is accused of blasphemy, the fallout remains limited to the individual, but when the accused is a member of a minority, the community pays the price. That no one has been found guilty in the Joseph Colony rioting is sadly also part of the norm. Certainly, one could point to the Kot Radha Kishan case, in which a Christian couple was burnt alive by a mob, as an instance in which perpetrators of faith-based violence were punished. But that is an exception in a chronology of shame that includes Gojra, Sangla Hill, Shanti Nagar and others, where justice is but an elusive hope.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2017