Obfuscating Christian lynching: Geo/Jang’s journalism without a conscience – by Laleen Ahmad
On 4 November, a local mullah, an imam of a Deobandi mosque in Kot Radha Kishan, a small town near Lahore, announced on the mosque loudspeakers that a Christian couple had burnt a copy of the Koran and hurled it into a rubbish bin. He told the people to go to the village where couple lived and kill them. Immediately after the announcement, a mob of mullah-inspired zealots rushed to the village where they found the Christian couple, Saima and Sajjad, confined in a room. They were badly hurt and tied with ropes. The mob led by the mullah broke the couple’s legs, dragged them out of the room and threw them into the kiln where they worked. As they were being burnt alive, the mob led by the Deobandi mullah chanted, “Allah is great!” and “Death for the infidels!”
Who confined the couple? Saima and Sajjad were held illegal detention by their employer, the owner of the kiln where they worked as semi-slaves.
Saima, a mother of three, was four-month pregnant with a fourth child.
All the mainstream newspapers reported the lynching of the Christian couple. They all pointed out that the couple killed were Christian husband and wife. But the Geo/Jang mafia continued to lie about the lynching just as it has always lied about the Shia genocide and other killing campaigns about the Hindus, Ahmadis, and Christians.
Geo/Jang Group’s flagship English language daily The News did not report the lynching at all. Below is given the entire report, which shows how the Geo/Jang Group has made alliances with Deobandi terrorists to obfuscate the destruction of Pakistan’s minorities because the perpetuators of anti-minority atrocities belong to Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League and his Deobandi allies of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamat/Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (ASWJ/LeJ).
KASUR: A husband and his wife were burnt alive in a brick kiln in Kot Radha Kishan, an area located in the outskirts of Kasur.
According to sources, 42 people have so far been arrested for their suspected involvement in the crime.
Some time ago the couple had come to live and work in Chak 59 of Kot Radha Kishan.
They earned their livelihood by working at a brick kiln. In the morning today, when they arrived there to work, the owner of the kiln asked them to return the money they had borrowed from him as advance.
On their failure to pay back the advance, the owner locked them up in a room. Later, he gathered villagers and got them thrown into the kiln, burning them alive.
According to eye witnesses, five policemen from the police check post, Factory Area did arrive at the scene but the angry crowd kept them at bay.
DPO Kasur, Jawad Qamar described the post-crime situation of the area as tense and that additional police enforcement has been called from Lahore to maintain order.
He said the bodies of the deceased have been sent for post-mortem.
– See more at: http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-164660-Husband,-wife-burnt-alive-in-Kasur#sthash.kmgQTR3X.dpuf
Geo/Jang in the service of Deobandi killers and their political patrons like Nawaz Sharif violates every code of journalistic ethics by portraying the lynching because of a dispute between the couple and the kiln owner, thus making it a personal dispute. This is Geo/Jang’s time-tested tactic of protecting the Deobandi killers. The above report fails to answer these questions:
- Who were the husband and wife? Did they have any ethnicity and religious identity? These are very important questions in Pakistan’s context.
- Who killed them?
- What are the “different allegations”?
- Who were the “infuriated villages”? Who led them and on what pretext?
- Why has the “Secretary Minorities” been included in the investigation committee?
- Does the kiln owner have any religious and political affiliations?
The report above does not answer any of these questions. It does not even tell that Yousuf Gujjar is a well-known supporter of Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League, and thus, he cannot and will not be touched by the police.
Geo/Jang Group’s journalism has never practiced responsible journalism in the past, and it will not do so in the future. People, in Pakistan and abroad, should boycott this group’s TV channels and publications because it promotes Deobandi killers.
Below are given likes to other publications, which reported the lynching of the Christian couple. It is hoped that the readers will be able to see how the Geo/Jang reporting is a pack of lies and obfuscations:
Christian couple lynching incited by mullah of local mosque: police:
http://www.dawn.com/news/1142437/christian-couple-lynching-incited-by-mullah-of-local-mosque-police
Imam of a local mosque incited murder of Christian couple, says police:
Justice cannot be ensured to Christian couple burnt alive until Shahbaz Sharif CM of Punjab:
http://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/headlinenewsd.php?hnewsid=5027
PAKISTAN: A Christian couple’s legs broken, and burnt alive on fabricated charges of blasphemy by a Kiln Owner:
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-147-2014
Christian couple beaten over alleged blasphemy:
http://nation.com.pk/national/05-Nov-2014/christian-couple-beaten-over-alleged-blasphemy
Christian couple beaten to death for ‘desecrating Quran’: police
http://www.dawn.com/news/1142386/christian-couple-beaten-to-death-for-desecrating-quran-police
Christian couple killed for ‘desecrating Holy Quran’ near Lahore: police
http://tribune.com.pk/story/786012/christian-couple-killed-for-desecrating-quran-in-pakistan-police/
Christian couple burned to death over ‘blasphemy’
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/sindh/06-Nov-2014/christian-couple-burned-to-death-over-blasphemy
http://www.dawnnews.tv/news/1011912
Blasphemy law, terrorism and Deobandi atheists – Abdul Nishapuri
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Deobandi atheists, as expected, are bashing all Muslims for acts of violence by Deobandi and Salafi Wahhabi bigots and a few ordinary Sunnis brainwashed by such hate ideologies. By bashing all Muslims and all religions, Deobandi atheists and secular sectarians are actually placing the perpetrators of violence (Deobandis, Wahhabis) in the same basket along with the their victims (Shias, Sunni Sufis, Barelvis, Ahmadis, Christians etc).
Shaheed Salmaan Taseer said that the blasphemy law must be amended to stop its misuse. However, terrorism is an issue much wider than law.
Deobandi fanatics who killed a Shia Muslim in Gujrat and Christian couple in Kot Radha Kishan actually violated the blasphemy law. #Fact
The Deobandi and Wahhabi Salafi hate ideology has brainwashed some ordinary Sunni Muslims too converting them into violent bigots.
Blasphemy law is a tiny issue. It is the Deobandi and Wahhabi ideology which is responsible for these acts of violence in the name of Islam.
What is the evidence that Imam of Chak 59 mosque was a Deobandi? Just few days before the burning, Molvi Muhammad Hussain had hosted Barelvi cleric Mufti Khadim Hussein Rizvi to celebrate Urs of Ilm Din.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/6/20/blasphemy-in-pakistan-anatomy-of-a-lynching.html
“Meanwhile, about a mile away from the kiln, in the narrow, red-brick lanes of the village, preparations were underway for a grand celebration as local clerics prepared to welcome Muhammad Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a well-known Barelvi Muslim scholar, to an Urs, a traditional South Asian celebration of the life and works of men considered to be Sufi saints. This event, organized by a religious political party, honored Ilmuddin, a Muslim man from Lahore who, in one of the most high-profile blasphemy cases ever to occur in then-undivided India, stabbed to death the publisher of a religiously charged pamphlet titled Rangeela Rasul (The Promiscuous Prophet) in 1929.”
…
“Muhammad Hussain, the local maulvi (cleric). Just four days earlier, Hussain had hosted the Urs for Ilmuddin.”
Probably “non-sectarian” LUBP is not aware of the fact that Shia jurisprudence has equally “enlightened” view on the lives of non-Muslims. Here is Marja-e-LUBP Ayatollah Abul Qasim Al-Khoei in his own words:
http://www.al-islam.org/islamic-laws-ayatullah-abul-qasim-al-khui/punishment-prescribed-certain-sins
“2806. If a person. who is adult and sane, kills a Muslim intentionally and unjustly, and the person killed is a man or a boy, his guardian may forgive the murderer or kill him. However, if the person killed is an infidel and his murderer is a Muslim, the murderer cannot be killed. “