THIS refers to the news item ‘Eight Pakistani preachers held in Burundi’ (Feb 8). According to the report, a group of these people arrived there and started holding unauthorised meetings in a mosque.

Residents of the area became suspicious as it was a time when there was a terrorist threat from the Somali Islamists.

Preaching is one of the obligations the Muslims have been asked to perform so that the message of Islam reaches others. However, it has certain modes and set parameters.

At a time when some fellow Pakistanis at home have been preaching hatred, intolerance and religious extremism, the visit of the Pakistanis to that remote and far-flung central African country is not comprehensible.

They had no business there. Charity must begin at home.

My maidservant had once told me that her grandparents were Muslims, but their abject poverty, sheer neglect and apathy on the part of their own believing people; and more to this, the open arms of the missionaries and their welcoming gestures and motivations had made them to cross over to the other fold.

Pakistanis have already become synonymous with religious extremism.

There is every need to correct this misperception. Some misguided religious vigilantes want to wreak devastation in the name of religion.

Our moderate religious scholars must step in to stop the extremists from acting in a manner that does not corrupt the Divine Message of peace and harmony. They are under obligation to guide the misguided few.

The government of Pakistan, on its part, must take appropriate steps to check the export of extremism, hatred and intolerance, narrow-mindedness and lots of similar commodities.

M.S. Islamabad