Medieval mindset

In the league of nations, Pakistan, with its regressive orientation, is a big anachronism. It poses grave danger to safety and security of entire South Asia region.

An eight-year-old Hindu boy has been accused of, and booked for, urinating on a carpet of a library of a madarsa, where religious books were kept, last month.

He was arrested and is now facing blasphemy charges that can even bring him a death penalty.

This happened in the district of Rahim Yar Khan, in Punjab, Pakistan.

A week ago, the courts issued him a bail and that was reason enough for the community to rise in anger and vandalise a Ganesh Mandir in the vicinity.

The anger was so malicious that they vandalised and burnt down an entire Hindu mandir.

A grant of bail to an eight-year-old is not what the community could tolerate.

Now that boy is under police custody, ostensibly, to save him from mobs.

His family has gone into hiding. And most of the people in that area have been forced to flee.

He has made a record of sorts because he is the youngest person ever to have been charged with blasphemy.

Blasphemy laws are frequently used in Pakistan to torture and subjugate the minorities.

The death penalty for blasphemy was provided for in 1986.

Although, no one has been executed yet under this law, the charges themselves are enough to destroy any accused and his or her family.

Being charged with blasphemy laws means the suspect and his family would never be free of fear in the Islamic country and would always run a risk of being killed.

Pakistan, its society and its laws against minorities are a huge anachronism in these times.

Pakistan and its terror-supporting politics and foreign policies have always been a challenge for its neighbours.

However, its society, policy, communities and laws too have turned into breeding grounds of hate and inhumanity.

The country has turned into a cesspool of all that is vile and dark in humanity.

The world has given Pakistan a long rope for a long time. It is, perhaps, time to show it the light of civility and force it to follow civilised behaviour.

The sad fact is that its vile machinations seem to be winning for the moment as evidenced by the success of its policy of hiding with the hare and hunting with the hound.

The world either does not understand the games Pakistan plays, or does not want to dirty its hands in yet another cesspool.

And that is a big incentive for a country and its communities that show no willingness to come out of the rut of a backward, starkly regressive and stone-age mindset.

(Featured representational image credit: @aboutsouthasia)