Source: Dawn
Author: Fahad Faruqui
The US has taken an initiative to spread the counter-extremist message across Pakistan to prevent the breeding of extremism and to deradicalise militants who were completely taken by the jihadist ideology — which is a tough battle becausePakistan is, perhaps, the only country where the state, with funding from US andSaudi Arabia, financed and trained jihadis to fight Soviet Russia and did nothing todeprogram the mujahideen after the war was over.
The one of its kind three-person unit, whose aim is to support grassroots groups and moderate religious leaders to counter extremist ideology, started operating in Pakistan last July.
We cannot take any ‘un-teachers of extremism’ seriously until they show us that they are working on getting the Marshall Law Ordinances against members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of 1984 canceled and also the Constitutional Amendments of 1974 declaring the members of this Community as ‘non-Muslims for the purpose of the Pakistani Constitution’ (as stated by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto).
Islam teaches: There is no compulsion in religion!