Intolerance is sweeping across Pakistan

Communal stability is at risk as the rollout of Zia ul-Haq's Islamisation continues unabated
24.08.09, Mustafa Qadri, for GUARDIAN (UK). In decades past, the town mullahs decried the use of megaphones during the call to prayer. Now they have embraced the technology in Pakistan. In every city the loud blare of the muezzin echoes throughout the streets, although they rarely call out in unison. For centuries Muslims have bickered over prayer times, and much else. For the people of Gojra's Christian Colony, in rural Punjab, the mosque megaphones presented a more worrying proposition. "These are infidels, killing them is permitted," screamed one local imam from his mosques as, two weeks ago, a Muslim mob stormed the colony on hearing a rumour, later found to be false, that a Christian had desecrated a copy of the Qur'an. About a hundred homes were burned to the grown along with nine people, most of whom were burned alive in their dwellings.