Catholic and Muslim religious heads in the city gathered at the Archdiocese house in Colaba on Wednesday to condemn the ‘Burn a Quran’ campaign launched by senior pastor Terry Jones in the United States of America (USA). The campaign is slated to be executed on September 11, the ninth anniversary of the World Trade Centre terror attacks in New York.
“Jesus respected all religions, and all men and women who sincerely seek God,” said Cardinal Oswald Gracias, archdiocese of Mumbai. “On behalf of all the Christian leaders of Mumbai and the Christian community here, we disassociate ourselves from the planned programme and condemn it as contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ.”
He added: “As president of the catholic bishops’ conference of India, I also condemn, on behalf of the entire catholic church in India, this insensitive act that is disrespectful of the holy Quran.
We pray that better sense will prevail on the organisers of the programme and that they will cancel it. I hope there’s no law and order problem in Mumbai on that day. We would like Muslims to know what we really feel about this.”
Maulana Zaheer Abbas Rizvi, secretary of the all-India shia personal law board, said: “If the Florida pastor goes ahead with his plan, we fear it will lead to a law and order situation that could be difficult to control. This is the holy month of Ramzan and the Quran is a revered book.”
Abraham Mathai, vice chairman of the Maharashtra state
minorities commission, said that the US government should have arrested the pastor.
Meanwhile, the US embassy has written a letter to Dr HT Sanghana, vice chairperson of the national commission for minorities, stating that the council on American-Islamic relations was using education and outreach as means to counter the ‘Burn the Quran’.
