Worried Catholics and Muslims in Madhya Pradesh are to appeal to the Pope and other world leaders to try and prevent a US church holding a “Burn a Qur’an Day” next month.

We signed a resolution demanding positive action from world leaders to block the burnings, said Mazood Ahammad Khan

The letter will be sent to the “leaders shortly,” the secretary of the co-ordination committee for Indian Muslims said yesterday.

“We want action against such hate campaigners so that no one will do it again,” Khan said.

The Dove World Outreach Center in Florida plans to host the controversial event on Sept. 11 to mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks in New York.

Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal, and a delegation of Muslim leaders met earlier on Aug. 24 to condemn the plan and discuss the impact the burnings could have in the state.

Some Muslim leaders would feel a “strong sense of anger” and Church people suspect it would be directed at them, said Quazi Muhammad Faisal, the top Muslim leader in Bhopal.

At the meeting the archbishop and Muslim leaders decided to write to Pope Benedict, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and US President Barack Obama asking them to help prevent the church from carrying out its plan.

The Catholic Church “fully shares the sentiments of Muslims that no one should be allowed to burn the holy Qur’an,” Archbishop Cornelio said.

“Such an act violates the established traditions for peaceful co-existence,” he told ucanews.com.

Christian and Muslim leaders have stressed the need to respect every religion, every religious book and each other’s right to follow a religion, he said.

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