Taliban Threatens Art of Living Volunteers in Pakistan: AOL

The Art of Living today said its faculty members and volunteers in Pakistan have been receiving threat letters and calls from the Taliban for over two months, accusing them of "conspiring against Islam."

Authorities in Pakistan had been informed about the threats, the Bangalore-based AOL founded by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said. The calls first began after March 8 when 15 gunmen vandalised and set on fire the AOL centre in Bani-Gala on the outskirts of Islamabad, it said in a statement here.

It said, for the last 13 years, stress management techniques, breathing and yoga exercises were being taught as part of the programmmes, "purely secular in nature", by AOL, which has 10,000 members in Pakistan.

The Art of Living has been "extremely sensitive" of religious sentiments in Pakistan and other Islamic countries while taking these programmes and majority of Muslims have no objection to this, it said.

Many Pakistanis have been visiting the Art of Living centre in India regularly and good-will delegations from both countries have visited each other as part of AOL's efforts to bring the people of Pakistan and India closer and to create a peace building process between the two countries, it said.