Thousands of fake faith healers in Pakistan are playing with lives of ‘innocent people’ – how to stop them?

By Kiran Bokhari

(Pak Destiny) The killing of 20 devotees at the hand of their faith healer has raised a serious question about the rise of superstitions in society.
This ‘peeri faqeeri’ menace has spread in our society like a plaque and there seems to be no remedy insight to deal with it. Let’s pray.

In villages the number of fake faith healers are in thousands but who can stop them from making people fool when the people are so superstitious and believe that their spiritual guides could help them in any situation and bring them big fortune… what a pity.
The gruesome incident took place in Chak-95 North, some 17km from Sargodha. Abdul Waheed, the custodian of the Ali Mohammad Qalandar shrine, along with his two accomplices allegedly used clubs and a sharp-edged weapon to cleanse his disciples of their sins.
Most of his victims aged between 30s and 40s. They included a business graduate, a police constable and the son of a former deputy superintendent of police.
According to witnesses and the police, the victims presented themselves for “cleansing of their sins”. Waheed, who sat on a platform, tortured them savagely to ‘purify them’.
“On the call of my faith healer I went to the shrine after Friday prayers. In the evening, Waheed began `cleansing’ his followers of their sins one by one by hitting them with a club. I was the first who underwent the process after taking off my clothes on his order. I fainted when Waheed severely hit me on my head. I regained consciousness on Saturday morning and found dead people around me. Finding no physical strength to move I kept lying there till the police reached there on Sunday and took me to hospital,” Mohammad Tauqeer, a carpenter by profession, told Dawn at the district headquarters hospital Sargodha.
Tauqeer is among the four injured who survived and one of them managed to leave the place to inform the police. The police reached the crime scene on Sunday morning and arrested Waheed and his two accomplices — his driver and guard.
“I have cleansed my followers of their sins and sent them to heaven,” Waheed said.
Regional Police Officer (Sargodha) Zulfiqar Hameed said that none of the victim families was willing to register a case against Waheed.
“The state will become complainant in the case. Forensic samples of the victims have been sent to a laboratory to examine whether they were drugged before being killed,” he said and suspected that a “succession row’ to the shrine could be a possible reason behind the gruesome killings.
Where we are heading as a society… it is an unbelievable degradation. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Punjab Shahbaz Sharif needs to invest on people, education and not on roads, roads and roads … to address this issue. Pak Destiny.