The floor tile design was too similar to the Arabic script for the name of Allah. In a situation reminiscent of how rampages protesting the Florida Qur’an burning actually wound up burning untold numbers of Qur’ans as collateral damage, apparently blowing up what was taken to be Allah’s name made up for the sacrilege of Allah’s name appearing on the floor.
“Pakistan bank attacked by terrorists over ‘sacrilegious’ floor tiles,” from Asian News International, June 18 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):
Islamabad, June 18(ANI): A terrorist outfit targeted a bank in Pakistan on June 13 because its floor tiles and their design were strikingly analogous to the sacred name, Allah.
This isn’t the first case of its kind: soft-serve ice cream has also committed this atrocity. One might call it, in the parlance of Homer Simpson, “sacri-licious.” Unfortunately, this time, the human cost was higher:
A bank guard was killed and four others were injured in last Monday’s suicide attack on an Islamabad branch of a bank.
Murdered for floor tiles. You can’t build a stable, prosperous society where priorities are so incredibly disordered and anger management is so self-righteously non-existent.
Bank officials confirmed that the administration had received complaints about the design of the floor tiles, and that some individuals had also met the management official in this regard, but neither the area police nor the bank administration took any action on the objections raised by the group.
When contacted, the bank’s president said that the allegation was baseless and concocted.
“It cannot even be imagined to disgrace the holy name of Allah Almighty. We are Muslims and can never think of the disrespect to the name of the Creator,” The News quoted him, as saying.
The officials investigating the case disclosed that in June 2009, an application was lodged with the Industrial Area police by the district president of a youth organisation in Islamabad, saying that he had asked the bank administration to change the sacrilege design of tiles, but they did not bother to listen to him.
He requested the police to register the FIR against the bank administration, but the police also did not take any action on the complaint despite the lapse of two years, according to sources.
Meanwhile, officers probing the bank suicide bombing case said they have got concrete evidence by using communication technology that the banned militant group Tehrik-e-Islami was involved in the suicide attack. (ANI)