A cleric who offered $1 million and a car for the death of those cartoonists who drew blasphemous caricatures said yesterday that suicide bombers had volunteered to “kill the blasphemers”.Yousaf Qureshi, the prayer leader at the 300-year-old Mohabat Khan mosque in Peshawar, announced the reward on Friday. “The blasphemers will not live and there are mujahedin who visited me to assure that such people will not be allowed to live for their unpardonable act,” the cleric told a news conference. “Mujahedin suicide bombers have contacted us and they are ready for this mission. They are college and university students.”
Qureshi is considered close to the Jamaat-i-Islami party, which is at the forefront of the ongoing campaign against the cartoons in Pakistan.
The imam also hit back at criticism from both Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu that rewards for murder were forbidden by the Holy Quran. “The OIC secretary-general is ignorant of Islamic teachings,” he said.
He said the Danish foreign minister “lost sense” after he realised the strength of the Muslim world’s reaction to the cartoons.
The only solution to the crisis was the trial of the blasphemers under Islamic laws, Qureshi said. “Nothing else is accepted than capital punishment under Islamic laws to the cartoonists,” he said.
| "Nope, nope, can't do nuttin' else, religion of peace demands death, nope." |
Qureshi said the government is unable to denounce the plots against the Muslim as the rulers are more interested in power than their religious obligations. However, he praised the NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani for leading a peaceful demonstration. But he was harsh about the silent role of the chief ministers of the other three provinces.
He urged the government to demand of the Danish government to extradite the cartoonist.
| Which will never happen, thus providing Qureshi, Qazi and the rest with a convenient excuse to whip up the masses ... |
The imam demanded of the government to ask all the foreign countries to withdraw their troops from Pakistan at the earliest.
| There are foreign troops in Pakland? |