When Dr Sarfraz Naeemi, who had challenged the Taliban idealogy, was killed in a suicide attack in the compound of a Lahore mosque quickly followed by another assualt on another mosque in Nowshera, it brought to the fore a contradiction in the thinking of the Pakistani Jihadhists and the religio-political parties. They are quick and venemous when a madrassa or a mosque is targeted by the Pakistan Army or the American drones and try to incite the feelings of the naive fathful. They have still not forgotten the military operation against Lal Masjid when its affiliated seminary’s students occupied a children’s libraray in Islamabad and stalked the streets and roads of Islamabad to kidnap those with ‘loose morals’.
These jihadhists bomb out mosquesful of faithful with no remorse while their supporters and champions of Islam show no courage to issue a statement of criticism. Little they know that when they themselves violate the sanctity of the mosque and reduce to smithreens the practicing Muslims, they give a message to the outside world that even places of worship are not that sacred when it comes to their lust for power.
In the pre-partition Charsadda, a person was shot dead when he was saying prayers in a local mosque. When the British Royal Police personnel came to examine the site of the crime, they went inside the mosque while their shoes on, people present there protested that they violate the sanctity of the mosque. To which one of the English police men replied: “When you kill a person inside the mosque, it is no disrespect to the mosque, while walking inside the mosque with boot on is.”
It is time for the religio-political leadership to jettison their hypocracy and take a clear stand on what is going on in Pakistan in the name of Islam.
