There has always been a discussion over whether religion should be kept away from politics or not. Either side has its own logics. But what is clear is that since religions including Islam have been utilized to reach certain political goals, societies have suffered. In Afghanistan, where more than 99 percent of population stands to be Muslim, people's belief has been misused.

The Taliban, for example, practiced all sorts of brutality from punishing people for simply shaving their beards to massacring them for their ethnicity and beliefs, all under the flag of Islam. Insurgents groups recruit hundreds of suicides bombers each year all on the ground of their religious belief. And such bombers have killed thousands of innocent people till date.

In the three decades of war in Afghanistan, clerics have always had a role and those who were sent by our neighboring countries to accomplish certain objectives did much to misguide the common people. The trend continues even today.

According to estimates, there are about 160,000 mosques in the country out of which only 3,000 are registered with Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs. It is believed that clerics from Pakistan and Iran are leading a number of mosques in Afghanistan as 'Pesh e Imams' and propagate against Afghan government and presence of international community in this country.

Local authorities in Kandahar say they have deported tens of Iranian and Pakistani Mullahs for not having any identity cards or passports and for preaching against the government.

Ahmadullah Nazok, the governor of Dand district of Kandahar province in a meeting with members of Masharono Jirga (upper house of the parliament) held in the province on Tuesday, 9 October said, "In the last two months we have deported 35 Pakistani and 4 Iranian Mullahs from our district. They used mosques as platforms for motivating people towards taking arms against Afghan government and international troops."

This is very serious as due to such meddling, Afghanistan has suffered a lot. The government must take some practicable measures to counter this issue by registering the mosques and keeping profiles of mullahs leading those mosques.

Mosques are places for worship, from where message of peace, love and brotherhood should be conveyed to the people. Mosques should not be allowed to be used as places for planning suicide attacks and other sorts of crimes and for spreading hatred and ideas that are not in our national interest.