Daily Times

Sir: On December 16, 2014, the darkest day in the history of Pakistan, the carnage of innocent children in the Army Public School, Peshawar was merely another incident and the children were merely more victims of what we had sown during the General Zia era. Over the years, we have been nurturing the vile and vicious mindset of religious extremism in the name of religious rights.

In my mind, the Taliban monsters are not the only bunch responsible for this deadliest ever attack in Peshawar — our ruling elite, dictators in particular, also deserve culpability for this massacre because they let religious fascism grow. They let theocratic factions flourish. They let people like Maulana Abdul Aziz work with full liberty in the capital. They also let self-styled Islam in the name of Deobandi, Barelvi and Ahle Hadith mature.

To get out of this quagmire there are certain things that need to be crystal clear. Foremost among all is to figure out some mechanism to better cope with the religious extremism ensuing from so-called preachers and their henchmen. There is a dire need to revamp the syllabus being taught in seminaries by including some extra subjects in order to better deal with global necessities.

ABDUL WADOOD RAJA

Rawalpindi