Desecration of Qura’nic Ayah

Minister for Religious Affairs was heard saying in a TV news bulletin this evening that a law would be made against the desecration of the newspapers pages containing Qura’nic Ayah.  Since it could be difficult to apportion the exact blame on some specific desecrator and/or it could  alternately  provide the fundamentalists with a handle to implicate even the innocent ones for committing  this act of blasphemy, it is strongly suggested that the newspapers and other publication be asked to stop this practice of publishing the Arabic script of the Qura’nic ayah in their papers in all forms, whether be it a daily feature on the top of front page or in the text of an article on other pages regarding some Islamic teachings etc. and only the Urdu or English translation of the Ayah be printed instead.  May be the Urdu or English translation would not evoke the same degree of anguish in the mind of our clergy and clerics as does the Arabic text.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)