Killers have no religion, no matter what faith they claim to profess. The Iraqi hostage-takers, who killed 12 innocent Nepalis, were dastardly criminals who would be a blot on any religious faith or civilized society. The Nepalis had gone to Iraq in search of a meagre living and caused no one any harm. Civilized people anywhere would respond to the brutality with revulsion, and even anger. The small Himalayan nation thus had the whole world’s sympathy in its hour of grief. But those who attacked a 150-year-old mosque in Kathmandu and other establishments owned or run by Muslims played into the killers’ hands. It is precisely this evil of hatred and senseless violence into which the hostage-takers would want to plunge the world. They would like to give the blackest of crimes a veneer of a cultural clash. Unfortunately, the mobs in Nepal walked straight into the trap by attributing the crime to the Islamic faith. The governments of several Muslim countries, whose airline offices were ransacked, have themselves been victims of sectarian violence. Besides, Nepal has a sizeable Muslim population of its own. It would do the small nation no good to be blinded by rage to its own interests. Apart from hurting its own economic interests and its bilateral relations with Muslim countries, such mindless violence could expose Nepalis living abroad to fresh dangers.

Such dangers could be very real in Nepal’s immediate neighbourhood. Large numbers of Nepalis live in India and there is a large Indian community in Nepal. Even if the violence in Nepal is not directly aimed at Indians, it could frighten them out of the country. Many areas on the border between the two countries have mixed populations. An exodus of Muslims or Indians from Nepal into India could cause unnecessary strain on bilateral relations. As it is, the Maoist violence in Nepal makes the danger of such an exodus from the country very real. The last thing Nepal needs now is a communal frenzy that would further endanger its own political and social stability, and harm its relations with other countries. A more alert government in Kathmandu would have anticipated the public mood in the wake of the killing of the Nepalis in Iraq and done better to protect the Muslim establishments in the country. This is no time for Nepal to let grief degenerate into irrationality.