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On 14 February, when the whole world was celebrating the day of love, a worshipper of odium and hate went against the universal theme of the day by killing the breadwinners of over 40 households, by slaughtering not just jawans but the hopes of their families, and tarnishing the already volatile state of tranquility that had been in place between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours.
Adil Dar claimed to be the representative of all Kashmiri Muslims and their views. But in my opinion, he has done something which (if my knowledge on world religions serves me right) is strongly condemnable in every religion of the world.
The very act of taking someone’s life amounts not just to cowardice but also barbarism.
What happened in Pulwama is condemnable no matter what religion I belong to, no matter whether I speak Urdu, Hindi or Dogri and no matter what nationality I have.
Those who believe that by following a certain religion or by having a certain country’s nationality stamped on their passport exempts them from grieving or at least condemning this heinous crime against humanity need to rethink.
Whatever little knowledge I have about the religion of Islam, I do know that the Quran mentions “Killing one human soul is like killing all of humanity.” I’m not an advocate of any one religion but I do consider myself an advocate of peace and sanity. There are many other peace-loving Pakistanis like me, from all walks of life, who are grieving the loss of life in Pulwama and we do stand with Indians in this time of grief and agony.
However, it saddens us to see that hate is being spewed on social media against us and our country with full vigour, and we are being collectively blamed for what has happened in Pulwama. We are being shown complicit in a mass murder which can only be the brainchild of a barbaric individual.
Peace-loving Pakistanis like me lament the carnage in Pulwama – not out of any desire to flaunt how good or virtuous we are but out of compassion for human life and the bereaved families of the victims.
In the end, I wanna say that if any badla (revenge) has to be taken then it has to be taken against the divisive and diabolical mindset which thrives on terror attacks like Pulwama, Peshawar school terror attack in 2014, or the Paris attack in November 2015.
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Published: 19 Feb 2019,04:12 PM IST