Editorial
Lal Mosque bloodstained
Lessons writ large for all concerned
When religious extremism takes on such a rabid form as to threaten the state power, the government of the day cannot sit idly by. It has to act and deal with it with an iron hand. Religion cannot be allowed to be used as a tool of armed politics, that too from a mosque and madrassa using women and children as human shield in confrontation with the government.From these points of view, one couldn't but try to understand the storming of the Red Mosque by the Pakistani security forces. The people of Pakistan, however, would be the best judge as to whether there was an alternative course to resolve the crisis without the bloodletting the government action entailed. It is worth noting that the nine-hour-long peace talks led by a former Pak prime minister Chaudhry Sujaat Hussain with the militant leaders floundered on the rock of the Pakistan government not agreeing to 'safe passage' for the militants, including the foreign elements, holed up in the mosque. The top most militant leader Abdul Aziz had been already taken into custody while attempting to flee and the second-in-command Abdur Rashid Gazi has been gunned down. Even though the top leadership has been neutralised, the spectre of Taliban-style aggressive fanaticism may well not have vanished from Pakistan. The most pertinent question is: why successive governments in Pakistan, including Musharraf regime, allowed things to come to such a pass that a mosque could develop into a safe haven for militants armed with machine guns, rocket launchers and gasoline bombs? During the last six months in particular there has been a campaign of abductions and threats carried out by the extremists like the Talibans did in Afghanistan. The alarming dimension to all of this is the vicious pursuit of the goal for imposing shariah rule on Islamic Republic of Pakistan where the Constitution itself forbids anything going against Islam, there is a parliament where the matter could be discussed and various avenues of public debate in existence. The Lal Mosque episode should lead to a fresh acknowledgement of the need for making a distinction between religiosity i.e. love for religion and exploitation of religious sentiments of people to advance aggressive obscurantism of a misguided bunch. There is a lesson to learn for Bangladesh, although playing politics with extremism in our country has not taken as rabid a form as in some other countries. Still, we must take guard against any possible use of mosque and madrassa as a base for advancing extremist political agenda, the portents for which exist in Bangladesh.
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