After 4/11 tragedy at the Nishtar Park, Karachi, complete strike was observed on the 12th April, 2006 throughout the country, including Karachi. This was a voluntary strike without any call from any religious wizard.
Was this strike not a token of sufficient protest on the part of the whole nation against the tragedy, which grieved every body. But it was not considered enough and a big religious zealot issued strike call for the whole country for Friday, 14th April 2006.
Whether these religious zealots or the political leaders have their own axe to grind by calling such strikes totally ignoring the plight of the poor daily wage-earners who sustain their/their families' lives on day-to-day earnings. Are thus these religious zealots less callous than their political counterparts?
The religious zealots believe more than a common man in the "Rizq-e-Halal". The question arises from which "Halal" source, expenditure incurred on arranging the large-scale street processions and large-scale meetings running into millions of rupees comes from?
The making of the arrangements for street processions and public meetings needs a large number of workers. Are the workers of the religious parties so affluent that they fully place themselves at the whims of the religious zealots without caring about their bread earning?
Conversely, if these workers are paid by their leadership, from which "halal" source such funds are generated? Viz-a-viz the present crisis in Balochistan, the government has discovered that a few political elements are maintaining paid private armies and the government is endeavouring - as a first step - to block the source of their funding.
Will it not be prudent for the government to initiate action against all the religious parties with a view to finding out the source of their income and regulate the same unless it is too late and at some point of time they come up against the government with arms.
It is not uncommon in our past history that a few sectarian zealots indulged in a lot of sectarian fights and they were receiving funds from abroad. Incidentally, this "road-blocking" and "Jalsa" type of Islam entered our country and more particularly in big cities since the days of General Zia-ul-Haque. A quarter century back, this type of Islam was almost non-existent.
Do these religious zealots realise how much inconvenience the road-blocking [due to the processions] causes to a common man and particularly the patients moving to the hospitals for check-up/treatment? Does all this inconvenience to the general public add any "Sawab" in their books with the God?
Will the religious zealots ponder on these issues?
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