[Pak Daily Times] Mughees Butt won prizes for memorising the holy Quran, which taught him about compassion and mercy. The mob that murdered him and his brother in Pakistan showed none.Apparently mistaken for robbers, the teenagers were beaten with sticks and rods before being strung up on metal poles in broad daylight as a large crowd and several policemen looked on. The high-profile lynchings, captured on a video frequently broadcast on television news channels, highlight the extent that Pakistanis have over many years lost faith in the police and the courts to deliver justice. Critics say the killings have also compounded a sense of failure hanging over the current government.
"In the Roman Empire, the accused were thrown before hungry lions and they cut them into pieces within five to 10 minutes," said Mohammad Anwar, the 87-year-old grandfather of the brothers, breaking down and shaking. "But my grandsons were tortured for two hours constantly with stones, bricks, rods and wooden sticks. I have not seen the video."
Twenty-eight people, including eight policemen, have been arrested in connection with the August 15 killings in Sialkot. Newspaper editorials and commentaries dissected social malaise and called for national soul-searching. "The Sialkot degeneration ought to be used as a cohesive instrument to bind the rather fractured remnants of whatever remaining morsel of benevolence we have left," said a commentary in the Daily Times entitled "Blood Sport". "And if that means an all-out war against the self of the Pakistani mindset, then let's see some heads roll." Interior Minister Rehman Malik had told the media that people would not be allowed to create their own justice system, and the culprits will be punished without political interference.
Many in the country say the courts are riddled with graft, agonisingly slow and let too many criminals go. Unlike soldiers who are often seen with respect, the police are often despised as corrupt and ineffective. At times, they are accused of taking part in or encouraging extra-judicial killings. The brothers, Mughees, 17, and Muneeb, 15, were killed on a busy street, a few steps from an emergency rescue service centre. The mob pushed their way into the building and grabbed ropes with which they hanged the boys, and then attacked them until they were dead, witnesses said.
"This has further undermined the government's credibility in providing protection and security for the people in whose name they were elected," said Riffat Hussein, chairman of the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies at the Quaid-e-Azam University. "It points to the bankruptcy of this government." Terrorists battling the state have at times tried to capitalise on the frustration with the courts and police, promising swift Islamic justice. Even if they wanted to address the issue, Pakistan's leaders won't have the time to do so any time soon.
The government is busy trying to clean up its image after its poor handling of the flood disaster. Pakistan may have to show it is a stable country with a potent government serious about maintaining law and order to get it. More mob justice may be in store until then. The boys from a typical middle class family had driven off on their father's red motorcycle to play cricket. They may have been mistaken for robbers who shot and killed someone and then sped away on a black motorcycle.
Standing near a weight-lifting bench at the family home, the grandfather proudly recalls how the older boy was a fitness fanatic and wanted to join the army, while the younger one was highly intelligent and could have been an engineer. The chief minister of Punjab gave the family Rs 1 million rupees as compensation. For the boy's uncle, Khawaja Amjad, the deaths exemplified a "cancer" spreading through Pakistan. "This is really the collapse of society," he said. "We don't have any trust in our political leadership."