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NOWSHEHRA, PAKISTAN: A Pakistani man is seen through a shattered image of a Hindu god and goddess as he repairs a Hindu temple after a mob torched the temple in Nowshehra, some 40 kilometers (24 miles) east of Peshawar, 29 June 2005. The Hindu temple was torched during a riot apparently prompted by the abuse of the Muslim holy book of Koran. Police arrested eight people allegedly involved in the roit, and one Christian who is accused of defiling the Koran in conservative northwest Pakistani province. AFP PHOTO/Tariq MAHMOOD (Photo credit should read TARIQ MAHMOOD/AFP/Getty Images)
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
This is indeed terrible and I truly hope all those involved in the incident are duly caught and punished. They deserved to be locked away in jail for their actions.
However, looking at the picture itself makes me proud to be Pakistani. Why?
Because after intolerance has rearer its ugly head in Pakistan, at least repairs are made to the places of worship that were affected, and this photo is a proof of that.
Contrast that to the attitude in our allegedly secular neighbour to the East. After the Babri Masjid was attacked by rioters, Muslims were prevented from repairing it and restoring the mosque to its prior state.
So what you have is today, a Hindu temple damaged yesterday by Muslim rioters in Pakistan is being fully repaired.
Yet next door in India, a Muslim mosque damaged 13 years ago by Hindu rioters is still barred from being fully repaired.
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
i knew the justifications by comparing with babri masjid would arrive. yesterday i was talking on the phone with my friend in banaras/allahabad. she was telling me how the mosques built there by aurangazeb after razing 500+ yrs old shiva temples are protected by heavily armed security. the whole of UP and MP is effed up with many such monuments. muslim rulers turning tolerant of others places of worship is been more of a recent need based thing, and still limited to a few muslim states like pakistan.
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
The question is not tolerance in the past. Both Muslim and Hindu rulers in India in the past did things that would be completely unacceptable today.
The issue is that preventing repairs to a damaged place of worship has no place at all in a 21st century nation, particularly one that is trying to get a permanent seat in the UN security council.
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
Why judge Muslim rule solely on the basis of Auranzheb? I mean Akbar, Babar, and their descendants all the way to Auraghzeb were extemely tollerant and perhaps even secualr..
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
a few points.
babri masjid was not a place of worship since many years.
added to that, it has always been on a place coveted by both hindus and muslims.
and yes, the past is important. the conflict of places of worship you see today in UP is a direct legacy of it.
repair a damaged place of worship sounds fine and dandy in theory. but do we also build the places of worship on whose rubble the last one was built? and this is not just a babri masjid issue.
Pakpatriot,
you might want to ask your fellow mullahs if Akbar was muslim. Aurangazeb on the other hand is their favorite hero.
while most mughals were tolerant, and some even secular, aurangazeb has left quite a bad after taste among hindus and sikhs with his intolerance.
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
Yeah, but mullahs are irrelevent here.. The fact is that Akbar and the rest were Muslims and rulers, and they were rather just.
Uragzheb may have been a scum bag, but you people use that to as an excuse to vilify all of Indian Muslim rule..
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
pakpatriot, aurangazeb came later than akbar, and his kartoot are still visible in daily life in some parts of the subcontinent. in any case, indians consider mughal rule under akbar the golden age of india.
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
According to the Communist Party of India, which as a party from a hardline secular political belief I hold to be biased towards neither Hindus nor Muslims
The UP Sunni Central Board of Waqf’s inspector stated in a report filed on December 22nd 1949 that Friday prayers and morning prayers were still being said there, though the mosque was locked at all other times.
Furthermore, the keys to the mosque when locked were kept by Muslims.
The fact remains that the only reason Muslims did not pray at the Babri mosque for 43 years prior to its destruction is that in an act of gross intolerance towards Muslims, the government of India prevented Muslims from worshipping there from late 1949 onwards simply because an Hindu zealot put a statue of a Hindu god inside the mosque.
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
not true, the reason muslims did not pray there anymore being it was on communally disputed land. the mosque was locked up after hindu extremists planted an idol inside the premises next to the mosque and decided to worship there.
as far as tolerance goes, there are a few hundred mosques in UP alone which stand on the rubble of hindu and jain temples, many of them guarded by goverment forces from destruction. not one temple has been allowed to be constructed over a razed mosque so far.
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
PA flays torching Hindu temple
PESHAWAR (PPI): NWFP assembly Wednesday condemned the incident of setting the Hindu temple on fire and discretion of Quran in Nowshira and demanded of the government to severely punish the culprits to avoid such incident in future.
Talking on point of order, MMA member Maulana Mujahid drew the attention of the house towards the issue and said after the incident of discretion of the Holly book some miscreants had put a Hindu temple on fire in Nowshehra, which was a condemnable act of them, he added.
Bashir Bilour of ANP while condemning both the incidents demanded of the government to provide security to minorities and take measures for securing their holy places. He asked the government to repair the temple with government expenditure.
Minority member Gursaran Lal informing the house said one sweeper Yousaf Massih during his duty had wasted a dump of garbage with fire, the dump, he said carried pages of Holly Book but he was not aware of it because a doctor asked him to waste the garbage of his home.
Gorsaran Lal condemned the discretion of holly book and said government should repair the damaged temple.
Speaker Bakht Jehan Khan said it was the responsibility of the government to provide security to minorities in the province.
Minister for Law and Parliamentary affairs Zafar Azam condemning the incidents said government would help Hindu community to repair the temple.
He said the alleged man who desecrated Quran had been arrested.
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
It was definately disputed, but Muslims continued to pray there in 1949. The Communist party link cites 1949 documents as follows:
*“any Muslim going towards the masjid is accosted and called names, etc…. People there told me that there is a danger to the masjid from the Hindus…” *
*When the namazis (worshippers) leave, from the surrounding houses shoes and stones are hurled towards the namazis. Muslims, out of fear, do not utter a word. *
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
Nobody mentions that the Babri mosque(structure now) was the also the birthplace of the Hindu God Lord Rama. How would Muslims like to have a temple in th Kabba? The problem between Osama and the US started when he didnot like the presenece of Christian US army in the holy land of Saudi Arabia. When Muslims cannot even tolerate the presence of a Kafir on their Holy land, how can Hindus tolerate a Mosque where the birth place of their most important God is situated? And it is not as if there was no effort to sttele the matter amicably, Hindus offered to shift the Mosque and bulid it brick by brick. The Muslims thought it not possible even when there were examples of Mosques being shifted in Saudi Arabia. Muslims have more rights and nakhras in India than in other Islamic countries. So Babri Masjid happened. So Gujarat happened. Necessary evils.
Re: Hindu temple torched to protect abuse of kuran by a christian
MadSci, the babri site is under the control of the courts. Even if the Indian government wanted to do something, it cannot till the court case is decided. You may remember that the late Narasimha Rao, then the PM said that the mosque will be rebuilt at government expense. That is the officially stated position. But that cannot be, untill the courts rule one way or the other.
The court had control even when the demolition incident took place; an unruly mob took over control for a few hours.
Just as one torching of a temple in Pakistan does not mean anything negative about the society, so too one rebuilding of the temple/ mosque
