HRCP Chairman Asad Iqbal Butt Urges Pakistan to Stop Mob Killings
Lahore [Pakistan], June 23: Asad Iqbal Butt, the Chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), has demanded that the federal government of Pakistan take immediate action to prevent future mob killings or lynching incidents.
The HRCP statement referenced a recent mob killing in Swat, Pakistan, and a similar incident a month earlier in Sargodha. Butt stated that these incidents show the state’s failure to prevent violence in the name of religion. He mentioned that the victim in Swat had denied desecrating the Holy Quran while in police custody.
Butt criticized the state for inciting violence through its policies and nurturing extremism. He said, “Such incidents are no longer just a matter of some bad laws that can easily be used as weapons in the name of blasphemy. Rather, they are a direct result of decades of policy of pandering to and nurturing far-right groups and extremism.”
The HRCP also highlighted the Pakistani parliament’s failure to consider a proposal to form a committee to investigate incidents where civilians took the law into their own hands. The statement urged Parliament to oppose fundamentalism, hate content, and violence in the name of religion, putting aside political differences.
Butt called for stronger action from the Islamic Ideological Council to eradicate the tendency of society to take the law into its own hands in the name of faith.
