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Government Should Take Action To Stop Hurting Religious Sentiment News papers have reported that the Bangladesh government on Tuesday arrested a cartoonist and confiscated the issue of the Alpin, a weekly magazine of the Prothom Alo, a left-leaning Dhaka daily for publishing a cartoon about the Prophet Muhammad (sm)that has ‘hurt the people’s religious sentiment.’ ‘The government has confiscated the issue as the cartoon hurts the religious sentiment of the people’. Authorities of the Prothom Alo, however, apologised and announced withdrawal of the cartoon titled Naam (name). A delegation led by the Baitul Mukarram mosque’s khatib, Obaidul Haque, called on the law and information adviser, Mainul Hosein, and demanded cancellation of the declaration of the Prothom Alo and arrest of its editor, along with others concerned, before this Friday ‘for showing disrespect to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)’. ‘It is a conspiracy to destabilize the country. We are very concerned over the issue,’ Mainul told reporters after the meeting. The conspirators wanted to throw the country into a chaotic situation, he claimed. The adviser asked everyone to remain alert against the plot so that the conspirators cannot be successful. The delegation that visited Mainul included Islami Oikya Jote’s chairman Fazlul Haque Amini, its vice-chairman Mohiuddin Khan and the Bangladesh Masjid Mission’s secretary-general Md Kalilur Rahman Madani, among others. Earlier in the day a team of the Detective Branch detained Prothom Alo’s cartoonist, Arifur Rahman, from his Uttara residence on charge of drawing a cartoon which was believed to have hurt the religious sentiment of the people We are pained that such issues are cropping up in some places and countries repeatedly. This is not an issue of freedom of speech or writing, this is an issue of deliberately hurting people’s deep faith. The West and the ultra-liberal section of many societies have failed to understand the issue and the perpetrators are excused in the name of freedom. A long term solution lies in criminalization of attacking the Prophets and the founders of all religions. As regards the present case, the government should find out the roots of the matter and take action against persons responsible.
