UMERKOT: Speakers at a march, which started from Mirpurkhas and reached Umerkot on Thursday, hit out at “so-called liberals” for sympathising with those who hurt religious feelings of the faithful, and blamed failure of the departments concerned in monitoring and controlling sacrilegious content on social media for recurrence of Umerkot like incidents.

They demanded speedy conviction of the suspects after they had been proved guilty of committing blasphemy to stop recurrence of acts deemed blasphemous by majority of the population.

They asked the government to acquit the police officials and religious scholars, who had been “wrongly implicated in the murder case of Dr Shahnawaz”.

Pir of Bharchoondi Abdul Haq aka Mian Mithu went so far as calling upon Sindh IGP to hand him the with which Dr Shahnawaz was killed and he would happily pay him Rs20 million for the trophy.

He criticised Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah for expressing sympathy for the blasphemy suspect and warned if Sindh government did not mend its ways they would besiege Chief Minister House.

Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan leader Sufi Yahya Qadri said at the rally titled Istehkam-i-Pakistan Peace March at Roohal bus stand that anti-religion elements, nationalists and so-called liberals were bent upon proving the blasphemy suspect a martyr.

He said that their protest had proved that Sindh and its religious parties had always been peaceful. The entire Umerkot was open, business was being run as usually and not a single item had been touched by the protesters during their protest, he said.

Sunni Tehreek leaders Sarwat Aijaz, Shahid Ghouri and Mehboob Ali Qadri criticised liberals for trying to portray Dr Shahnawaz as mentally disturbed person and said liberals had no right to live in Sindh, they should better leave.

Local religious leader Pir Ayoub Jan Sirhindi

said the incident was being used to incite Hindus and Muslims to clash. God forbid, if it happened Hindus would be at a greater disadvantage as they had made huge investments in the desert region, he said.

He said that he had always advocated brotherhood with Hindus because it was their prime religious responsibility to safeguard life, property and honour of minorities. Hindus and Muslim should come together to iron out differences, he said.

He warned the government against crackdown on seminaries and slammed liberals for trying to get the name of Umerkot changed to Amarkot. In fact, Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai too had called the town Umerkot, he said.

Mufti Haq Nabi Sikandari presented a number of demands to the government on behalf of the assembly and said that the suspects who had been proved guilty of blasphemy should be convicted speedily, the departments concerned should monitor and control blasphemous content on social media, organisations and their employees involved in working against Islam and state be banned, police officials and scholars “falsely implicated in cases” be acquitted of all charges, a joint investigation team be formed to probe the incident and unveil the truth, forensic report of Dr Shahnawaz’s mobile phone be made public immediately, liberals be stopped from making derogatory comments against Islam, scholars and Pirs, and the government should stop siding with them.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2024