Guest Blog by Silence from Islamabad Observer
Religion is basically meant to be personal belief of a person or group of people. It is outrageous, shameful and downright arrogant of the religious groups to use religion as a source of profits. However since the times immortal, criminals, religious clerics, land grabbers and even power hungry kings and democratic leaders have been using religion as a source of exploitation and profiting. “Crusade” of George W Bush in name of ‘war on terror’ and killing of innocent women and children by ‘Taliban’s’ in name of Islam are two sides of same coin. The basic goal is to exploit sentiments of religious groups for personal gains.
Religion is also a favorite tool of criminals and land grabbing mafias. The bloody episode of ‘Red Mosque’ in Islamabad, we witnessed recently, is not the only example. In every city and town, criminal gangs have occupied public or private land; they would build a ‘mosque’ on it and sell the adjoining lands for commercial or residential purposes. Even green belts, public parks and educational institutional institutions are not safe from these gangs. Whenever government authorities want to evict these gangs and demolish the illegal buildings, it would become a religious issue. If authorities demolish the illegally built mosque, it will bring a religious and political storm. The illegal mosques built on public lands in Islamabad were saved from being demolished by countrywide protests leading to interference of ‘Imam-i-Kaba’.