No decent citizen of any country, professing any faith, would endorse the sacrilege committed by the makers of the controversial film. This act was most probably aimed at instigating Muslims around the world and, in the process, making money and gaining cheap popularity. The manner in which repeated attempts were made to ensure that this outrageous film gets noticed is sickening. The mass-scale protests across the Islamic world are a natural reaction. With a significant number of these protests turning violent, and a number of Muslims getting killed and injured, properties destroyed and economic activity coming to a standstill in the violence-hit areas, the enemies of the religion would be happy. Finally, will we keep responding to such outrages (which may increase in numbers) in the same, self-damaging way? We should put our heads together and chalk out a concrete course of action to find a solution to deal with such acts. Burning embassies, damaging and destroying public property, attacking foreign businesses and suspending economic activity are the exact outcomes that the originators of the mischief desire to achieve and we are precisely doing what they want. At the governmental level, Pakistan can raise this issue at international forums for introduction of some legal framework for stemming such activities for good. Similarly, the principal characters, which are responsible for this and other similar acts, should be sued in courts of the countries where they live. Whatever we do in response to occurrences such as this should end in punishing the perpetrators rather than ourselves or the innocent people of other faiths who have nothing to do with the entire affair. Alamgir Khan,Islamabad, September22.