| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| What’s happening to Gujranwala? |
| 2004-02-01 |
| Friday Times An article concerning the Islamisation of Gujranwala, a small city in Punjab province. No one could imagine that Gujranwala will go violently Islamist the way it has in recent years. After General Zia’s Islamisation, Gujranwala turned to jihad and turned inward, scrutinising its citizens for moral backslidings. It first turned on the minorities and produced the famous Salamat Masih Case, accusing an under-age Christian child of insulting the Holy Prophet PBUH. Sipah e-Sahaba attacked him and his co-accused in Lahore when they were coming to attend the High Court, killing one. Salamat Masih had to be sent out of Pakistan to avoid getting murdered. The second famous Gujranwala case was about a hafiz of Quran and an amateur doctor who accidentally dropped his copy of the Holy Quran in the fire and was reported over the loudspeaker by a local rival. His neighbours came out and burnt him alive. The rural nature of the population was expressed in the way the citizens mistook the word atai (quack doctor) applied to the victim over the loudspeaker, for asai (Christian). In other words, one doesn’t have to check the facts before killing a non-Muslim! Entertainment as sin: In 1970, the city was liberal as it voted for the PPP; today it is jihadi, a Muslim League city that is increasingly attracted to seminarian Islam and is proud of having contributed to the largest number of martyrs to jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The local government is dominated by the MMA while the politicians are busy doing what they do usually and the bureaucracy is carrying out their Islamist agenda by attacking entertainment. In recent months, the Urdu press reported the following incidents. According to Jang, policemen from three police stations attacked a theatre in Gujranwala and arrested four artistes including actresses Hina Shaheen and Salomi on the charge of fahashi. The police said that citizens had complained of obscenity against the producer and the actresses. According to Nawa-e-Waqt the four actresses, after being arrested by the police, were not kept by the police but transferred to the house of the magistrate where three other magistrates gathered to ‘enjoy’ their company. Daily Jang on 17 December 2003 reported that in the year 2003 Gujranwala had nabbed 22 actresses, including Nargis, Hina, Salomi, etc, on charges of obscenity and prosecuted them. Sixteen theatres were assaulted and four theatres were sealed for doing obscenity. Two cinemas were sealed for showing obscenity and 47 internet clubs were closed down. All this was done by one brave sessions judge Riazul Hassan Alavi who deployed a phalanx of four judicial magistrates to cleanse the city of all sin. The four disguised themselves and secretly visited the theatres, the cinemas and clubs to see if there was obscenity going on and if the actresses were wearing clothes unacceptable to them. Killing entertainers for salvation: Meanwhile, because of the atmosphere of extremism created by the clergy citizens took to killing women they suspected of obscenity. According to Jang, the cleric serial killer of two dancing girls of Gujranwala, Maulvi Muhammad Sarwar, would go scot-free because witnesses who had earlier deposed against him had all recanted. Moved by religious passion, Maulvi Sarwar went around catching dancing girls outside cinema halls and theatres and hotels and shooting them to death. The example of Gujranwala: If you think that Gujranwala will be reformed if the Lahore high Court took care of the lower judiciary in Gujranwala, consider this. Since the machine of judicial reform grinds even slower than the other state institutions, it is more likely that Gujranwala will start affecting the conduct of other cities. Instead of Gujranwala coming to heel, other cities will fall victim to its savage example. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #3 Hey, you gotta put the sausage factory SOMEwhere... |
| Posted by: Hyper 2004-2-1 10:37:14 AM |
| #2 Gujranwala almost makes the Wahhabis and Saudi Arabia seem progressive. No bet, CF, that's a stacked deck. |
| Posted by: Gasse Katze 2004-2-1 4:37:31 AM |
| #1 Any bets we (State department / NGO's / etc...) are sending them money? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-2-1 12:29:10 AM |