DHAKA, 24 September 2005 — Speakers at a seminar here yesterday urged the Islamic scholars and thinkers to find ways and means to counter the “strong propaganda of the West against Islam.”
Those who accuse Islam of violence are ignorant; the scholars said adding, “No religion is more tolerant than Islam to the followers of other faiths.”
The speakers, mainly Islamic scholars from Bangladesh and abroad, were taking part in a discussion on the second day of three-day international seminar on “Islam: Religion of Peace, Progress and Harmony” and “Bangladesh: Model of a Moderate Muslim Nation.”
Former chief adviser of caretaker government Justice Latifur Rahman inaugurated the meet Thursday while Dr. M Shamsher Ali presented the keynote paper at the inaugural session.
Organized by Dhaka-based think-tank Center for National and Regional Studies (CNRS), the seminar is being attended by Islamic scholars from Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Singapore.
Nearly 300 religious leaders representing madarsas, Islamic organizations and institutes from the country are also taking part in the discussion.
Chairing yesterday’s session Justice Dr. Javid Iqbal of Pakistan said the Islamic scholars of South Asia had set the best viewpoint of explaining and practicing Islam as a religion of peace and harmony. “Islam promotes the value of ethics and harmony while terrorism destroys it,” he said.
Troops Deployed to Distribute Food
About 15,000 soldiers have fanned out across Bangladesh to distribute rice to millions of people amid food shortages ahead of the harvest season, officials said.
About seven million families — accounting for about one fifth of the country’s 140 million people — will receive rice rations from the government-run program starting Sunday, said Shajahan Sirajee, a spokesman for the Ministry of Disaster Management and Food.
Food supplies often run low in the months before the November harvest and soldiers and local administrators have already begun distributing ration cards to families throughout the country, Sirajee said.
He added that about 120,000 tons of rice has been set aside for the program.
In addition to distributing food, the soldiers will help to prevent corrupt officials from siphoning off the free food for personal use, army spokesman Lt. Col. Nazrul Islam said. The government said Wednesday it would sell rice at a discount from this weekend amid spiraling prices of the staple food grain.
Food prices soared 9.2 percent in July and prices were expected to rise further, the state-run Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics said last week.
Meanwhile, eight more suspects were arrested in the hunt for those responsible for last month’s bomb attacks across Bangladesh that left three people dead and wounded 125, police said.
