Thursday, August 06, 2009
The barbaric Gojra incident is a national shame. It takes just a few masked men to commit crimes against innocent people and they get away with murder in the name of religion. It is reported that the Sipah-e-Sahaba was involved in this reprehensible incident. The same extremist group got away with burning innocent people alive in Melody Cinema in Islamabad when they went on the rampage some years ago. The same terrorist group is also responsible for killings hundreds of Shias over the years in different parts of the country. It is about time parliament repealed the blasphemy law which has been used as a licence to kill the already marginalised minorities of Pakistan.

These terrorist groups have brought shame to all those Pakistanis like the Muslim villagers of Gojra who sat down with the Christians and had settled the matter amicably. On behalf of all these moderate, peace-loving Pakistanis I apologise to the Christian Pakistanis and demand that these murderers should be brought to justice.

Fauzia Minallah

Funkor Childart Center,

Islamabad



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May I ask why none of the major religious parties and even most of the major political parties have not said anything on the Gojra incident. I request party leaders to openly condemn these events so that the people of Pakistan in general and the minorities in particular could know where they (the religious and political party leaders) stand on this issue.

Dr Alfred Charles

Karachi



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It is highly regrettable to hear an extremely irresponsible statement regarding the alleged involvement of terrorists from Swat in the Gojra incident -- and a person as responsible as the Punjab governor made this remark, without offering even an iota of proof. The people of Malakand sacrificed their homes and became IDPs so that the military could take on the militants in their home region -- and now they stand accused by the Punjab governor of as bad an atrocity as the Gojra killings. History tells us that the people of Swat have always been peaceful and that it was during the time of General Musharraf that the region became under the control of extremists.

Dr Abdul Hadi

Saidu Sharief