REFERENCE Zahid Hussain’s article ‘Silencing Mashal’, (April 19) and the letter ‘Misuse of blasphemy law’ by Jamshed Ahmed Khan (April 20).

There can be no two viewpoints about the beastly murder of Mashal Khan and, thus, all those involved in it must be punished according to the law. Injustice, whether through the misuse of the blasphemy law or any other means, can only lead to turmoil.

However, both of them have levelled allegations, implicitly or explicitly, against some individuals, most notably Justice Shah of the Islamabad High Court, for whipping up public sentiments over blasphemous material (not linked to Mashal Khan) in the social media.

Justice Shah himself, and later on one of the ministries’ secretary, had both observed that such outrageous and excruciatingly painful comments had been made in the case in question that they could not even bear to read all of them. Although I myself haven’t read the blasphemous remarks, a friend had narrated just two of them and I stopped him from citing more because even these were unbearable. The judge had rightly warned such actions can lead to civil war.

It appears that those criticising the honourable judge and others like him opposing this abuse of the social media have either not read those inflammatory words themselves or are totally insensitive to the feelings of other Muslims.

As noted even by the scholar Karen Armstrong, extremism and militancy has been skyrocketing not just amongst Muslims but in all major religions. Unless the sentiments of religionists are respected, extremists will become powerful enough to overthrow governments and kill their opponents, while making life unbearable for the moderate majority.

Salik Qadri

Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2017