The two cases of death due to torture over the last few weeks – first of 17-year-old Rehan in Karachi and now of Salahuddin Ayubi in Rahim Yar Khan – demonstrate what a bloodthirsty society we have become. Our first instinct is to kill. In both cases, part of the public outrage (at least amongst a small section) is over the fact that the killings were ‘unjust’, not because killing a criminal is unjust in and of itself, but because Rehan was a minor and his crime was unproven and because Salahuddin was mentally ill. Does this mean their killings would be fine otherwise?
Until we radically reconceptualise our understandings of crime, punishment and justice, such deaths will continue in and out of custody. Rehan and Salahuddin are not exceptional. Their killings are part of the norm in a society that is organised around the use of fear and violence as modes of social control, and one in which notions of compassion and empathy are becoming almost non-existent.
Naveed Abbas Maitlo
Islamabad
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