TRY and remember the last time you saw a crowd in Liaquat Bagh as large as the one we just saw on Tuesday. That ill-fated park, which has seen two prime ministers assassinated, has hosted political gatherings since the earliest days of Pakistan, but you will have to travel more than two decades back in time to find a gathering as large as this one. And even that one was not spontaneous, but organised by the party machinery.

Try and remember the day Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by Qadri, whose funeral has taken on such historic qualities. Can you recall what the various political parties were doing on that day? In the days leading up to the assassination, the PPP was struggling to keep its hold on power as the MQM had left the coalition. On the day of the murder, the MQM was threatening to also withdraw from the Sindh government. And only minutes before the bullets flew, Nawaz Sharif had issued an ultimatum to the government to implement a 10-point agenda dictated by his party or face eviction from the Punjab government, where the parties were coalition partners. He gave the government three days to respond.

When news of the assassination was flashed all over the country the PML-N, speaking through its spokesman, graciously decided to extend the deadline by another three days.

The next day the PML-Q, little more than a memory itself now, announced that it would support a no-confidence motion in parliament if Nawaz Sharif were to introduce one.

In short, even before the bloodstains were cleansed from the site of the gruesome murder, it was business as usual for the political leadership. If the matter were not so gruesome and serious, it would be worth pausing here to note the irony behind Nawaz Sharif having to bear the consequences of hanging the murderer of his own arch-enemy.

Having executed Qadri, the government has taken a step from which there is no turning back.

Remember also that Mumtaz Qadri was a member of the Elite Force of Punjab. The New York Times reported he had been “removed from a special police branch several years ago because of his extremist religious views”, and reinducted in 2008, when Shahbaz Sharif became the chief minister of Punjab.

This paper carried a report saying “the IG of Special Branch, Mr Nasir Durrani, had released a report last year in which it had been pointed out that Mumtaz Qadri and 10 other policemen had some nexus with religious extremists and it was suggested that they should not be deployed on VIP duty.”

It was also reported that three days prior to the assassination, Qadri had organised a ‘religious ceremony’ at home, which according to other police officials quoted in the same report, ought to have flagged him for observation by the Intelligence Bureau and the Special Branch, whose job it is to monitor and vet police officials, especially in sensitive duties.

Recall also that Shahbaz Sharif, who bravely begged the Taliban to spare Punjab from their ferocious bombing campaign around the country, did not attend the funeral of the assassinated governor of the very province of which he was the sitting chief minister.

I don’t rake up these memories to embarrass anyone, although if some embarrassment is felt perhaps it would be a more genuine sign of progress than the execution. My intention is to remind us of something very simple. Over the years, we have whistled casually past all the

milestones that announce the spread of extremist mindsets in our society. Lal Masjid was one such milestone. The assassination of Salmaan Taseer was another. What lessons were learned from these episodes, and where do we see the impact of these lessons?

The last milestone has been the tragedy at Army Public School last year. And now we are being told that we have finally woken up to the threat posed by the spread of violent extremism. Good, but just look at the sights from the funeral to see what we have woken up to.

In local government elections last November several banners erected by PTI candidates carried large pictures of Mumtaz Qadri. When it was pointed out, Naeem ul Haque, the party’s central information secretary, tweeted that “PTI wishes to dissociate completely from certain posters in Karachi LB campaign glorifying convicted killers”.

Dissociate from certain posters? What about your coalition partners whose head has just led the funeral prayers for one of these “convicted killers”? What is your position on that?

This is the time when all political forces need to say it loud and clear: convicted murderers will receive the punishment the law says they should receive. And while they’re at it, they should also collectively put out a message that the only road forward for Pakistan is an inclusive and a progressive one.

This is also a good moment to point out the folly of using the death penalty as a tool in the fight against terror. Many countries in the world realised decades ago that the death penalty does not work as an instrument with which to fight violent crime. It is even more ineffective in fighting religiously inspired militancy.

Having executed Qadri, the government has taken a step from which there is no turning back. Now it is crucial that the memory of Qadri does not morph into a legend to inspire future generations. That will only happen if Islamabad can find its voice and loudly proclaim what kind of Pakistan it is committed to building. And Rawalpindi visibly buries its history of using religious militancy as a tool in foreign adventures.

In the meantime, we have climbed so far up the pole of denial and indifference that it’s going to be quite a journey climbing down. But climb down we must, unless we want to wake up yet again in a Pakistan where the picture of Quaid-i-Azam has been replaced with that of a garlanded Mumtaz Qadri in government offices across the country.

The writer is a member of staff.

khurram.husain@gmail.com

Twitter: @khurramhusain

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2016