Fundamentalists belonging to “Religion of Peace” are at it again. Killing for protecting their mythical god from music !
Image credit arynews.tv
One of Pakistan’s most famous and respected musicians, celebrated for devotional songs from a centuries-old mystic tradition, has been shot dead by Taliban gunmen in Karachi.
Amjad Sabri, 45, was shot by two men on a motorbike as he drove through a congested area of the port city on Wednesday, Allah Dino Khawaja, the regional police chief, told Reuters. A relative travelling with the musician was injured but survived.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Qari Saifullah Mehsud, claimed responsibility for the killing and said Sabri was targeted because the group considered his music blasphemous, local media reported.
Is it just a fringe element indulging in mindless terrorist act ? Actually no.
In 2014 May, the Islamabad High Court had issued a blasphemy notice under a notorious provision in Pakistani law against Sabri for mentioning the Prophet Mohammed’s family in a song and dance routine that was broadcast on local television channels. Mainstream Islamist organisations were behind that court case. When you have a court case for blasphemy, the chance of you getting killed by Islamist terrorists before the court verdict is out is very high. Around 60 people have been killed like that. Even senior politicians who spoke against inhuman blasphemy laws were killed. So the celebrated singer was already a target of Islamists.
When you make 7th century religious diktats a part of your legal system, there can never be democracy and free exchange of ideas. There can never be free expression of art, music and culture. Sadly one can’t see a ray of hope, a way of escape from religious misery, for Pakistani citizens.
I find the notion of blasphemy to be the most outrageous of all religious presumptions. I don’t expect a religious person to understand my objection, but any secular person who has any sympathy for the notion of blasphemy has to consider this: to accept that a religion can prohibit certain utterances and claim redress for them amongst its own adherents cannot be tolerated, for it presumes primacy over the individual’s status as a human being. But that’s not all. Religious people who subscribe to the notion of blasphemy (don’t they all?) do not keep their blasphemy thing to themselves. Anyone from any religion or none is held subject to their blasphemy prohibitions. While other religions seemed to have mellowed on this point, there are still Muslims out there engaging in frenzied killing of anyone and everyone who dares to step across their lines. All of this might gain an interesting twist if, say, Islam and Christianity were to recognise each other’s blasphemy restrictions — POOF! Mutual annihilation. I know, it’s wishful thinking.
True Anjuli . The Hindu fundamentalists use a different tactic. They use “Indian culture” a loose concept shaped as per their purpose to dictate what each Indian should do.