THE deputy director of the Geological Survey of Pakistan Mohsin Ali Naqvi was among the three men who fell prey to the ongoing killing spree in Quetta the other day. The attackers were lying in ambush outside Mohsin Naqvi’s office. They attacked him at point-blank range as soon as he arrived at his office… The victim’s name is enough to indicate that it was a sectarian killing.

The country has been in the grip of killings in the name of religion for the last couple of years. People have become such fanatics that they don’t even bother to investigate a matter… [For instance] trumped-up blasphemy charges are used [with the intention to] kill an enemy. After that, the murder doesn’t take time and it is carried out in a most barbaric manner …after death by stoning the body is set on fire and then dragged through the streets and bazaars.

We must accept the fact that Pakistanis are basically an abnormal people. The mindset should have changed with the spread of education but, ironically, the curriculum taught in our schools and colleges has been fanning religious fanaticism. In the name of Pakistan Studies … young minds are stuffed with hatred for … a neighbouring country and its inhabitants with whom the common man seldom gets a chance to interact. The illiterate mullah then channels this deep-rooted hatred towards other sects. Some 90 per cent of such religious leaders consider followers of other schools of thought to be infidels. They think that the followers of other sects are liable to be killed in the name of faith. Religious tolerance seems to have disappeared without a trace in the country. The Internet has added to these trends. Concocting literature and pictures to make fun of other sects is so common that it turns even normal people into fanatics. Unless stringent measures to control the menace are taken immediately, the day is not far when this religious fanaticism will grip the whole country… Then everyone will be helpless.—(Sept 27)

Selected and translated by Zaheer Mahmood Siddiqui.