Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday described the defeat of Taliban in Afghanistan as the victory of good over evil and said a common thread of religious intolerance ran through different instances of terrorism like the destruction of Bamiyan buddhas, the US terror strikes and cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.
“At the very core of these familiar developments is religious intolerance of the most extreme and violent kind. .... And that is the irreligious mindset that rejects and abhors religious diversity,” Vajpayee said in his address to the World Congress for Preserving Religious Diversity.
Stating that terrorists believed their bigoted ends can justify the most diabolical means of terror of killing thousands of innocent people, he said they took the name of god and religion and called their campaign a 'holy war' only to excite sentiments and emotions and in a bid to mobilise wider support to their cause.
“In fact, they represent no religion,” he asserted saying how could they as they did not respect human life which was the essence of every religion. He said in all the recent developments like cross-border terrorism in J&K, destruction of Bamiyan buddhas by the Taliban and the September 11 terror strikes in the US, A single causative thread runs through them all.

Bureau Report