I read in newspaper about a meeting of religious scholars in Lahore that issued a fatwa against suicide bombings. I strongly believe this should have happened a lot earlier. Pakistan has been struck by this spree of suicide bombings really hard in recent years but these clerics had zipped up through out. The present condemnation is important because belated as it is, it still carries weight with religious fanatics. The gibberish being dished out by these fanatics as the 'word of God' can only be countered this way. Meetings of this sort should be held in the Frontier province and the FATA areas as well. The religious scholars of those areas must address this issue sooner rather than later if we have any chance of meandering out of this so-called war on terror. Military expedition is no answer and Pakistan must cease taking dictations from the West. Negotiations, and only negotiations, is the solution to this issue. There is absolutely no justification for killing your own people. -YASSER ALI SHAH, Karachi, via e-mail, October 23.