Anti-Hashmi Campaign Takes a Vicious Turn

Javed Hash­mi, the defect­ed leader of PTI, is once again being tar­get­ed for his coura­geous views – this time by the Tehreek Tahafuz‑e Namoos‑e Risalat, a reli­gious hard­lin­er group known for oppos­ing all sorts of reforms in the blas­phe­my laws. The rea­son for tar­get­ing Hash­mi is his speech in the Nation­al Assem­bly deliv­ered exact­ly one year ago in which he crit­i­cized the blas­phe­my laws for being “wrong” and “con­trary to Islam”. In the same speech, Hash­mi also announced that back in the 80s he had vot­ed against the blas­phe­my laws by going against his par­ty pol­i­cy.

For the last cou­ple of days, pam­phlets are being dis­trib­uted and mount­ed on walls in var­i­ous areas of Mul­tan. The areas that the pam­phlet cam­paign is par­tic­u­lar­ly focus­ing on come under NA-149, the con­stituen­cy from which Javed Hash­mi is going to con­test by-elec­tions. Mr. Hash­mi had ear­li­er resigned from the same Nation­al Assem­bly seat fol­low­ing his dif­fer­ences with the oth­er lead­er­ship of PTI.

The pam­phlets are accus­ing Javed Hash­mi of dis­re­spect­ing Holy Prophet (PBUH) by oppos­ing blas­phe­my laws. A major por­tion of the text in the pam­phlet quotes excerpt of Javed Hashmi’s speech before the Nation­al Assem­bly. It then com­mands faith­ful Mus­lims to prove their love for the Prophet (PBUH) by boy­cotting Hash­mi because he “vot­ed” against the pro­tec­tion of Prophet (PBUH)’s respect. The afore­men­tioned speech by Javed Hash­mi was deliv­ered in the after­math of a ter­ri­ble sui­cide blast on a church in Peshawar that claimed the lives of 81 Chris­tians. The pam­phlet also names Shireen Mizari for speak­ing against the law that pro­tects Prophet (PBUH)’s hon­or.

After his split from the PTI, Hash­mi has to con­front a good deal of oppo­si­tion from Mul­tan. Accord­ing to sources, the pam­phlets are being wide­ly used for pro­pa­gan­da by the oppo­nents of Javed Hash­mi. The NA-149 includes local­i­ties like New Mul­tan, parts of Mul­tan Can­ton­ment, and mid-town areas. Fol­low­ers of Hash­mi real­ize the poten­tial dan­ger of such a cam­paign. Speak­ing to The Laal­tain, they raised their seri­ous con­cerns quot­ing the exam­ples of late Gov­er­nor Salman Taseer & Shah­baz Bhat­ti – both were assas­si­nat­ed for their efforts to reform blas­phe­my law. Such a con­tro­ver­sy can also adverse­ly affect Hashmi’s cam­paign for the by-elec­tions.