A cleric, Qari Ahrar, was Wednesday arrested by security agencies on charges of supporting the Taliban during his Friday sermon last week in Lahore.
Ahrar, a cleric in the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) staff colony mosque who had been associated with CAA for 20 years, had reportedly led a public ‘dua’ for the Taliban to emerge victorious.
Since the attack on Peshawar’s Army Public School, military and political leadership have formed a National Action Plan to counter terrorism. The establishment of military courts in the country and lifting of a long-held moratorium on the death penalty have been a few of the major developments in this regard along with the formation of multiple committees to deal with several dimensions of the security threat.
Among those was also a committee to monitor hate speech, headed by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. Per directions, all mosques and their khateebs should be registered with the government, and the merits of requiring religious figures to apply for a licence to deliver the Friday sermon, which goes out over loudspeakers, can be considered.
It is already the case that the Friday congregations can only take place in some, and not all, places of worship. The oversight net can be tightened by the law requiring that all sermons be recorded and the records kept in order and be readily available.