T HE first-page headline in your issue of Oct 7 proclaims: `Only state can declare jihad, says minister`.

On reading it, one would think that a new law has been laid now. As a matter of f act, it is a long-settle d position in law that jihad can only be declared by the state.

It was precisely this point on which Maulana Maudidi had declared long, long ago that fighting in Kashmir was not a jihad because it was not declared as such by the state of Pakistan. The headline, in the light of these f acts, looks rather amusing.

Justice (r) Salahuddin Mirza Karachi It may be amusing, but Dawn had to inform its readers what the interior minister said in the National Assembly. E ditor