Mob justice a despicable behaviour.

Byline: Malik Muhammad Ashraf

Prime Minister Imran Khan while addressing a press conference after inaugurating round the clock facility at Torkham border on Wednesday rightly condemned the Ghotki incident and termed it a conspiracy to sabotage his coming visit to USA and his address to the UN General Assembly. One tends to agree with him considering its timing. At a time when Pakistan through its diplomatic offensive has put India on the back foot at the global level concerning the abuse of human rights in IOK and the lurking humanitarian crisis as well as the treatment meted out to minorities in India, such incidents can provide an ammunition to our enemy to get back at us and use it as a weapon to challenge our credentials on human rights.

In the ensuing session of the UN General Assembly Prime Ministers of Pakistan and India will be addressing the world forum on the same day and the latter would be delivering his address before our Prime Minister. There is a strong possibility that the Indian Prime Minister in his address to the General Assembly as well as interaction with the US leaders and media would try to propagate this issue to counter our diplomatic offensive. The Indian media is already in an anti-Pakistan campaign mode on the issue.

Reportedly an unruly mob ransacked three temples, a school and multiple houses belonging to the Hindu community after the principal of a public school (A Hindu) was accused of blasphemy by a student. The order and sanity was restored through combined efforts of the leaders of the local communities and the administration. Whether it was really a conspiracy or yet another manifestation of the despicable social behavior that was on display at Gojra and Badami Bagh Lahore against the Christian community, lynching of Mashal Khan at Wali Khan University, murder of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti or the Asia Bibi case, the fact remains that such incidents do tarnish image of Pakistan and its credentials as a safe country for the minorities.

The carnage of Christian community at Gojra in August 2009 would put to shame even Adolf Hitler, the architect of 'The Holocaust', for having under performed. The most sordid aspect of that gory incident was that those who were lynched and whose houses were subjected to arson were not at all involved in the alleged desecration of the Holy Quran. According to the investigations into the incident, some children belonging to the Christian community had cut out some pages...