Gives a new meaning to “kill your television”…now its “jihad against your TV”…

CHARSADDA: Hundreds of followers of a local cleric on Saturday set ablaze dozens of TV sets following the cleric’s ruling that watching television was ‘haram’ (forbidden) in Islam. The men congregated in the Municipal Park after Friday prayers and piled up about 25 TV sets, doused them with fuel and set them on fire, said witnesses. “These people actually responded to the cleric’s call,” said a local police official. The cleric, Abdullah Shah, had said on radio that watching TV was a sin and declared a jihad against vulgarity and obscenity. The park echoed with shouts of “Allah-o-Akbar” (God is greatest) and “Islam zindabad” (long live Islam), while the emotional crowd also decried an ongoing crackdown on suspected extremists. A local journalist said that, days earlier, Abdullah Shah had decreed that TV was “not allowed in Islam” after followers had asked him to give an Islamic ruling.

Hat tip to Redstate’s REDHOT.