If the massacre at the Army Public School, Peshawar in 2014 shook the nation and resulted in the National Action Plan to fight terrorism, there is no reason why the gruesome murder of Mashal Khan should not help generate national consensus against misuse of the blasphemy law. It is not the first time that this law has been abused and the shocking murder was committed on the campus of Abdul Wali Khan University. Nor will it be the last unless the countrywide grief materializes into a well-defined policy, both in terms of amending the blasphemy law through legislation followed by its prompt application. Much has already been spoken and written about how the blasphemy law is exploited for certain political ends. But as to what happens to its abusers, the picture remains blurred; and if at all it brings out one with some clarity, it shows Mumtaz Qadri being worshipped as a hero of Islam. Or it depicts one Arif Mardanvi daring the police: "I am the killer of Mashal Khan." He may not be the very person who fired the gun that took Mashal's life, but look at his audacity in challenging the law of the land. One would have no beef with the less than perfect implementation of the National Action Plan - after all, but for it Karachi would not have been relatively peaceful and the tribal areas no more no-go lands. The part assigned to the security forces under that legislation is more or less done. But what is not done is manifest in the brutal murder of a student on the premises of a higher educational institution; right before his teachers and by a crowd bent upon delivering mob justice. That the blasphemy law is being misused, on this there is no counter-argument and the debate is over. The time is on hand now for action to amend the offending piece of legislation in order to pre-empt its misuse and to ensure that its exploiters do not escape the long arm of law and are duly punished. The challenge is how to go about it. There are conflicting opinions both about the need to amend the law and as to who should try the accused - ordinary courts or their military counterparts.

And this controversy is nowhere as sharp and visible as at the very forum which is to call the final shot - the sovereign Parliament of Pakistan. The chief of the country's biggest religious party, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, says his party would oppose amending the blasphemy law, arguing that "pro-West parties wanted to get rid of the country's Islamic identity." He is "depressed" at the killing of Mashal Khan. At the same time, however, he is troubled that "liberal and secular forces," taking advantage of the killing, were trying to amend the blasphemy law. And therefore, he will offer stiff resistance to any move for amending the blasphemy law. But no less interesting - and telling, because the gravity of a situation would always dictate the way to its resolution - a committee of the Senate demanded that the Mashal Khan murder case be referred to the military court, and that's not very long after the Senate's very reluctant approval of the law extending the term of military courts. The committee also strongly opposed formation of a judicial commission on the case, because such a move it believed would delay justice. Since the Chief Justice of Pakistan is seized of the matter, it is up to the Supreme Court itself to decide the forum for the trial. But to an ordinary person the decision should tilt in favour of trial by a military court for a number of reasons, the most pertinent being the forum's recognised immunity from pulls and pressures that ordinary courts have to experience in such high-profile cases. Given the tension-ridden socio-political milieu that obtains today, the trial of the case by an ordinary court is also quite likely to divide people and thus threaten the public peace. Recall how problematic it became to try the murderer of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer. At the same time there could be no objection to the National Assembly's consensual resolve that some "safeguards" should be appended to the blasphemy law for prevention of its misuse. But the question is how soon - because time is of the essence, given the escalating war of words on this issue in the social media.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017