| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| Burka shields thieves |
| 2006-12-29 |
| MUMBAI: Women wearing the burka and other face-concealing veils could be banned from jewellery stores in a west Indian city after a spate of thefts involving burka-clad customers. More than a dozen thefts have occurred in jewellery shops in Pune, Maharashtra state, in the past two months, with at least three cases of women wearing burkas spotted by surveillance cameras as they stole gold ornaments. "Police could not find any clue about the women's identity because their faces were covered," said Fatehchand Ranka, from the Maharashtra Jewellers Association. Pune's jewellers say they have written to the authorities asking for permission to stop serving customers who refuse to show their faces to surveillance cameras from January 1. But the move has angered a section of India's Muslim community, which says the attempt to profile customers on the basis of their attire is an attack on their freedom of religion. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #1 "Police could not find any clue about the women's identity because their faces were covered." Do the police know there are women under the burqas or just assuming they're not male? "But the move has angered a section of India's Muslim community..." There's a shocker. "...the attempt to profile customers on the basis of their attire is an attack on their freedom of religion." No, it's not an attack on muzzie religion. It's an attempt to fend off attacks on personal property from theives posing as muslims or who are, in fact, muslim. I suppose the muzzie community would still be angered if the store owner were to allow only one burqa clad beauty in the store at a time. That'd be like...profiling you know. Not too far from my office there's a "Quickie Mart" run by a couple guys named Abdul and Mo. I wonder how they'd feel if a half dozen guys came into their store from the Church of the Black Ski Mask of the Holy Grail? The security cameras Abdul and Mo have set up won't do much good in terms of identifying anyone by face. Hmmm... |
| Posted by: Mark Z 2006-12-29 08:59 |