By IANS,
New Delhi: With the world’s most wanted terrorist and Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden dead, the fear psychosis of associating terrorism with Islam will come to an end, young Muslims in the national capital hoped.
“Now that Osama bin Laden has been killed, I, as a Muslim, hope that the fear psychosis created by the West (against Islam) will finally die in the minds of the people,” Mohammad Reyaz, an M. Phil. student in international studies at the Jamia Millia Islamia, said Tuesday.
Miraj Ahmed, 23, agreed with the view while insisting that bin Laden was no hero for the community.
“He paid for his sins because Islam does not teach you to kill innocents. He is no hero for us. We’ve icons like (former presidents) Zakir Hussain and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to follow. Osama was just a glorified mass murderer,” Ahmed, a city student, told IANS.
In a 40-minute operation Sunday night in Pakistan’s Abbottabad, the US Navy Seals attacked Osama bin Laden’s hideout and killed him.
According to Afaaque Nayyer Shamsi, a freelance journalist in the city, with bin Laden’s death, the world can hope for things to change for the better.
“However, I don’t think his death will end terrorism and extremism in the region,” Shamsi said.
There were others who expressed reservations about the operation by the US forces that took the world by surprise.
Abrar Ahmad, assistant professor in the department of electrical engineering at Galgotia College in Noida, said: “I think Osama died much before. In the case of (former Iraqi ruler) Saddam Hussain, the whole process took more than two months, but here within 24 hours they say they caught, killed and buried Osama. They are using his name now for political reasons.”
Tahid Nasir, who works for a financial news website, said that while the news of bin Laden’s killing prompted jubilation, it need not solve the menace of terrorism at large.
“I don’t think the killing of Osama or his followers will solve the problem of global terrorism. For that the very root cause of the ideology of terrorism must be eliminated,” he said.