Sialkot Lynching: Has Justice been Done?

Justice was finally served to Mugheez and Muneeb yesterday, after being plagued by a delay of more than a year. Once served “Mob justice” by volatile packs of street hood, they were battered and beaten to death on being accused of theft and robbery, and their dead bodies were mutilated and hung in public. Their murderers were patted by SHO Rana Ilyas while two of his officers had done their duty holding down the legs of the brothers while they were banged with kicks, punches and sticks by Ring Masters-Our People. There were some like MNA Firdaus Ashiq Awan who indicted boys of former criminal acts and pointed their father’s three-days silence as a hint to the shame his sons had brought upon him.

This is the society we live in. Though reading the above mentioned doesn’t leave much to be said, I would still speak until I’m also silenced. People who spend their energies contemplating and debating over why our politicians do what they do, why are we falling down into the deep pits of political and economic crises should swap their energies thinking what path has this society began treading upon. There are things I ponder on everyday. After all the injustices and unfairness suffered, have we also turned into violators and vultures ourselves? Will the often talked about revolution begin with a revamp in political system or the social machinery?

The scene where SHO Rana is patting the murderers reveals a lot about the cause-effect in this veritable case study. What good can happen in a society where the very law enforcers confess to their inefficiency and incapability of catching the criminals and beg public for exchanging roles with them. Well happens is what we saw in the Sialkot case. The seemingly downtrodden, aggrieved and frustrated public, once battling against the wrongdoers itself turned into the very monsters they were fighting against – the brutal, the murderers and the snatchers. With Justice completely inaccessible to them, they have become the law and its enforcers themselves – deciding the punishment and executing it as well. What one couldn’t have imagined is that walking on the path of securing their rights, these people will turn into vicious vultures, puking out bile and snatching their fellows’ right to live, on as little as a suspicion. Clearly, people have turned better oppressors.

This is precisely what happens in a society where there’s no accountability and a warped sense of personal responsibility. One looses one’s basic humanity. The motto becomes I, me, myself. And it’s not just about the people of Sialkot. Look around and you’ll find it everywhere. Stand in a long que and you’ll find people trying to push you down and trample you to make their way forward, get stuck in a traffic jam and you’ll find people trying to run you down and hit your car to rush ahead. What do you expect of these people? If tomorrow someone suspects you of murdering and killing, what do you think will become of you? Precisely what happened to the brothers. Look into yourself, try to figure out, do you see a wild animal in you feeding on the frustration and dissatisfaction you feel. If so, you should be scared of it and murder it before it murders someone else.

If justice is what we demand for ourselves, it has to begin at home. A personal sense of accountability and check on one’s own selfishness will do us good. Also, if revolution is what we desire, the change will have to come from within us – from microcosmic level to macrocosmic, as it’s said. Otherwise, this was one incident caught on camera and so it got attentions, there will be many Mugheez and Muneeb who never got justice and may never will.