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Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry took suo moto notice of the incident after TV news channels beamed shocking footage of the youths Hafiz Mughees, 21, and his brother Hafiz Muneeb, 16 being beaten to death by a group of men armed with sticks and rods.
Sialkot district police chief Waqar Chauhan, eight other policemen and hundreds of people watched the lynching.
The video aired by news channels showed that the youths were hit repeatedly by some men.
The mob later hung the bodies of the brothers upside down in a square.
According to a First Information Report filed by police, the brothers were going to meet their relatives in Buttar village when some people caught them and accused them of being robbers.
In a brazen display of mob justice, they tortured the brothers, killed them and then hung their bodies and tried to burn them.
The family of the youths has demanded justice and stern legal action against police officials who failed to rescue the brothers.
The family said the youths were killed in the wake of a dispute over a cricket match they played some time ago.
The Deputy Commissioner of Sialkot said a charged mob killed the two brothers for injuring four people in a dispute over a cricket match.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry ordered Anti- Corruption Director General Justice (retired) Kazim Malik to investigate the matter.
"No one will dare to take the law into his own hands if police had the courage and command to eradicate such brutal and inhuman practices from society," Chaudhry said while heading a bench that heard the suo moto case yesterday.
The atmosphere in the apex court became tense when the gruesome video of the killing of the brothers was shown in the courtroom.
When district police chief Chauhan informed the court that Station House Officer Rana Mohammed Ilyas had been arrested but the killers were yet to be detained, the Chief Justice said Chauhan deserved to be suspended and sent to jail.
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Substitute Aamer, Butt and Asif for the two boys, the media and the court of public opinion for the mob, the ACSU for the police and pretty much what happened to the boys is what is happening to the reputation and lives of the accused trio.
So the next time someone is a hapless victim of mob violence, dont grieve. And someone is lynched in public, don't express shock and horror.Because when civil society abdicates its responsibility and chooses anarchy over due process as the expedient solution, this is the only outcome possible.
PS: - This link, for your perusal
Spot the difference
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9 comments:
are you saying the tikdi is innocent or are you saying the 3 players should not be implored by the media and hurt fans or are you saying the 3 should be let off ?
Somebody has to take some kind of action and PCB is not that body. So whats wrong if this players are being asked to be removed / withdrawn/suspended from game till the investigations are done ?
Sam,
I am saying that we need to step back and reserve judgment on the three until such a time that punishments or acquittal is decided upon by authorities who are entrusted to do so.
But what I say doesn't matter because the three are already condemned in the court of public opinion and by the media.
Cheers,
Homer, spot on. You cannot expect fair trial in "kangaroo" courts. Pun intended.
Homer
This is a balanced view. Never occurred to me. To hell with Asif who seems to be a habitual offender, who can put Shoib Actor to shame.
But, Butt has been a decent chap and Amer is a brilliant little kid.
All 3 are but the symptoms of the malady. Don't treat the symptoms, rather treat the underlying illness.
another aspect could be why NOTW is not charged for placing illegal betting...?
I applaud your sense of fairness and respect for due process, Homer. While you're at it, might I recommend you demand a re-investigation for terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab. Is there not a 0.000000001% chance that we have the wrong guy? Also he is from the subcontinent, so we must support him, no? Let us even entertain fuckwit conspiracy theorists and say the real Kasab was killed by the mumbai police during the thrashing he received when they caught him, and that this happens to be some sprightly Kashmiri youth who offended the police in game of cricket. The mumbai police, were under pressure to deliver something special after their inadequacies and under preparedness was exposed. They, like the NotW, should be shot for being the messengers. The media and mob mentality in a country looking for a scapegoat has ensured he is the victim of a witch hunt? Sound familiar?
Let us see what due process gained that pathetic brain washed gun toting murderer. He has been allowed to live for over 600 days longer than the scores of people he killed. He has enjoyed food, shelter and medical attention (no matter how bad, he's survived hasn't he) at the Indian taxpayers' expense. It is likely to live for many more years while the government dithers on whether to execute him. During the much publicized cases, he was allowed to confess, change his confession, make all manner of ludicrous accusations for the sole purpose of delaying the trial for as long as possible and drawing as much attention to it as possible (a case not without precedence, refer Zacarias Moussaoui's tactics for his trial). In short he made a mockery of the system and perverted it to his own aims, certainly cause more distress to the relatives of his victims.
What I am saying is just because we have a system, it does not mean it is perfect, nor that it cannot be abused to the benefit of those who have committed a crime. We have clashed on this before, when the BCCI appealed the ICC's ruling on the state of the Kotla pitch. It seemed vitally important to you that due process was followed, although the BCCI's motivations for this could have been (despite knowing they definitely were in the wrong), to delay a ruling for as long as possible to their benefit.
Nobody is saying that anyone is presumed guilty until proven so. But given the odds, is it hard not to be deeply suspicious and voice that suspicion? I cannot commend your efforts to discredit the NotW either. Sure they have their motivations for exposing this, and sure they don't have a good reputation. But the focus of the investigation should be on acts committed and not on who exposed them and for what purpose. If an ex-convict calls in to report a murder, should we give it less importance because he called it in?
At least Kasab was found guilty. There is a danger that since an actual crime has not been committed, apparently the NotW did not place a bet had they done so they would be liable for prosecution, the three could get away scot-free, despites the incredibly low probability of this all having been a coincidence. If we are going to praise "due process" simply because it exists and because it can throw a life-line to the innocent, let us also accept that it can be abused to aide the guilty.
A final note, if your argument was instead that these three are being made scapegoats by everyone so that this case can be quickly closed and everyone can remain oblivious to the larger malaise, I would strongly agree with that pov. If instead you are praising the existence of bureaucracy, I cannot agree.
Sorry Homer...I did not get the relevance of the sportingintelligence link at the end of your post..what did i miss?
Well Homer - you have given all some "aman ki assha"...
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