Religious terror on the world stage

It is unbelievable that any religious ideology, stretched to any extent of extremism, could motivate the kind of massacre of children carried out by Taliban within the precinct of education.  While Islamic religious leaders from around the world have expressed dismay at this, there remains an unanswered question as to why it is only the extremists of one religious direction that resort to this kind of absolutely obnoxious  behavior.   Nowhere in the history of mankind such brutal and inhuman behavior was exhibited by the extremists of one particular community, so widely around the world.

The world was just waking up this week to the criminal hostage taking of one lone extremist in Sydney, when the massacre in Peshawar took away everyone's sleep.  Each incident of this nature in the world is outdoing the earlier in magnitude and effect.  Over 90 girls in northern Nigeria, abducted by Boko Haram are yet to be traced and may possibly have been sold into slavery.  The young girls, women and children abducted and raped by ISIS are being sold like livestock in the Middle East every day. Taliban from the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan has undermined the meanest crimes by donning this crown of blood dipped in the blood river of innocent children they killed for no reason.  In Kashmir, Laskar e Taiba has continued its cowardice of terrorizing those who want peace in the valley and hills. 

 In all, extremists have all exhibited incomprehensible enthusiasm to kidnap, rape, torture, maim and kill women, children and men indiscriminately.  The right minded Muslim communities around the world have been greatly constrained to do more towards establishing confidence and trust in them among the cautious civilizations.

India teeters precariously on the risk of extremism and terrorism.  All religions live in harmony in India but those who pursue the small lane politics of communalism use ingenious methods of tipping the balance of secularism.  And events such as the ones we have witnessed this week are exploited by those who thrive on the opportunities of baying for blood.

It is time that Islamic leadership from around the world come together to cleanse the bad image being created by the extremists of their community.  

V K SAXENA
PRESIDENT
National Council for Civil Liberties,
Ahmedabad

Web: www.ncclindia.org,

Twiter:@VKSaxena26