In the name of religion

In the name of 'religion'
Editorial The News, April 22, 2007

One is absolutely shocked at the details of a video acquired by the Associated Press Television News which shows a Pakistani boy, dressed as an Islamic militant, slaughtering a man. The footage which AP said it obtained from Peshawar shows a boy whom the news agency described as a "baby-faced" boy who was "barely twelve years old". He spoke in a high-pitched voice, calling a tied and blindfolded man held before him as an American spy. The video then shows the boy literally cutting the man's throat as he is held by older men, all dressed in military fatigues. The shot then shows the boy hacking at the man's throat till he is decapitated. Amid cries of "God is great", the boy then holds the man's head by the hair, telling the camera that others who spy for America will meet the same fate. The man who is killed in this most gruesome manner was a militant himself but accused by his killers of betraying a senior Taliban official who was killed in an air strike in Afghanistan last December. (The reference must be to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Usmani, a senior associate of Mullah Omar, who was killed at around the same time by a US air strike in Helmand province).

The name of the Taliban's top commander in southern Afghanistan, Mullah Dadullah, is also mentioned in the video. Besides this, AP said that songs praising Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden (who is referred to as "Sheikh Osama") can also be heard. A voice-over in Pashtu also identifies the dead man and his village, in Balochistan. Apparently, this video is widely available in the bazaars of NWFP and Balochistan and an AP reporter said it was even available in the dead man's village. It has to be said that this isn't the first time that an alleged spy has been killed in this manner by militants who by their actions seem to be very-much pro-Taliban. The headless bodies of numerous such 'spies' have been found in parts of FATA in recent months, as fighting between government forces, and now government-backed militants, and foreign militants rages on. However, this is perhaps the first time that a video of the beheading has been circulated and with such a young executioner.

The news agency has also claimed that its reporter who visited the executed man's village in Balochistan met his father who had no qualms about admitting that his son was a Taliban supporter, had fought the Northern Alliance in the past, had arranged for the medical treatment of injured Taliban survivors and had provided shelter to both Mullah Osmani and Dadullah. Of course, all of this is vehemently denied by the Pakistan government, which has also dismissed reports of Mullah Dadullah being involved in the peace deal brokered last year in Waziristan. The gruesome and savage nature of this particular execution clearly suggests that those who claim to do such acts in defence of their religion are shamelessly indulging in falsehoods themselves. No religion condones such acts, least of all committed by a child, which as one expert has said may constitute a war crime in itself. Whosoever claims that this is being done to further the glory of religion is in fact guilty of doing great disservice to their faith and must be roundly condemned.