Rahul9090
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New Delhi:The Lal Masjid, in the heart of Islamabad, is back in the news for paying tribute to the slain Al Qaeda leader and world's most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden.
Lal Masjid has long been a barometer of militant Islam in Pakistan. In the 1980s it funneled fighters into the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. In the '90s its leaders made an awe-struck pilgrimage to visit their hero, Osama bin Laden, at his farm outside Kandahar.
According to a report in the New York Times, the cleric of the mosque has just inaugurated a library dedicated to the memory of the dreaded terrorist.
"If Pakistan truly has freedom of expression, then we should be able to express our love for our heroes," said Maulana Abdul Aziz, the chief cleric of the Lal Masjid, sitting in a room with the sign "Martyr Osama bin Laden Library" on the door.
"And we love Osama bin Laden," Aziz concluded.Aziz's controversial statement and the mosque's resurgence comes at a crucial time when the country is battling militancy and is in the middle of a national debate over whether to negotiate with the terrorists.
The report says that clerics of the mosque "which has burnished its credentials as a citadel of Islamist revolt" are exploiting the government's failure to offer an alternative vision of Pakistan's future.
Seven years ago, the mosque was under in the throes of a pitched battle with the authorities.
Aziz who tried to escape the siege under the cover of a burqa, was captured and paraded by the intelligence services on national television. The cleric's brother and his elderly mother died in the firefight.
After the siege was over, Aziz was charged with murder, abduction, arson and terrorism. The court had blamed even former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf for the incident.
Yet within a couple of years, the mosque was reconstructed with generous donations and Aziz was back in business.
http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/wor...-homage-to-osama-bin-laden--17107.html?page=2