A feminine police officer hailed a hero for safeguarding a lady from an offended mob has instructed Sky News the case has made Pakistani society query itself.
Syeda Shehrbano, an assistant superintendent in Lahore, stepped in to save lots of the girl from a crowd of 200 males, a few of whom had been calling for her to be beheaded.
The crowd had mistaken the print on the girl’s costume for verses from the Koran – it was solely later confirmed by clerics and students to be Arabic script for the phrase “beautiful”.
Blasphemy is punishable by dying in Pakistan and there have been many circumstances of individuals being murdered earlier than they even attain a trial.
Ms Shehrbano was captured pleading with the mob to “trust us” earlier than masking the girl in a black gown and gold scarf and pushing via the gang to guide her to security.
She was honoured for her bravery by the police inspector normal for Punjab province, who mentioned she had “put her life in danger” to assist the girl.
Speaking to Sky News presenter Yalda Hakim on Monday, Ms Shehrbano mentioned she hoped the incident could be the final of its kind, “at least in Pakistan”.
“The most important thing is that it has made the society question itself because the four- or five-minute walk that I took from the main road until I reached that area (where the woman was) is a bustling bazaar.
“It’s a bazaar full of individuals, it is a bazaar full of consumers in a number of outlets, so folks had been occurring with their day by day actions all of the whereas realizing there’s a lady surrounded by round 200 folks able to be lynched.
“That’s the question that is going to be posed on the society’s consciousness, on its conduct and how it has degenerated and why it has degenerated to such an extent.
“Now folks have began asking: ‘If 200 folks will be able to lynch her, why cannot 600 be prepared to guard her?'”
Ms Shehrbano appeared uncomfortable with being described as a hero, saying: “This is too big of a question for me to answer… people around me would be a better judge of this.
“It might have escalated, sure; my very own life was at risk, sure, there isn’t any doubt about that.
“The team which was present on the ground – their lives were in danger, there’s no doubt about that. But there are certain things you have to do in the line of duty and at times you have to go beyond that line of duty.
“Our lives, after we’re in such a state of affairs, they develop into fairly secondary and never so vital, as a result of the lifetime of the sufferer is at stake, the picture of the nation is at stake.”
Asia Bibi, a Christian lady who was sentenced to dying in Pakistan in 2010 after being accused of defaming the Prophet Muhammad, noticed the video and instructed Sky News it reminded her of what occurred to her.
She was acquitted in 2018 and later fled the nation.
She instructed Yalda Hakim: “After viewing that scene, my own incident crossed my mind – the way I was arrested and lost my senses.
“Similarly, the identical situation was with that younger woman.
“The dress she wore at the time had some Arabic words printed on it but the mob thought it was the Koranic verses.
“It’s Arabic-speaking folks’s costume vogue – we Pakistanis ought to confirm one thing first earlier than taking any motion.”
Source: information.sky.com”