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India-Pakistan

Udaipur incident: 4 accused attacked outside court after being sent to 10-day NIA remand

2022-07-03

[OneIndia] A court on Saturday sent all the four accused in the Kanhaiya Lal murder case in Udaipur to 10-day NIA (National Investigation Agency) remand.

However,
if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well...
the accused were attacked by an angry crowd of people while being escorted by police outside the premises of NIA court in Jaipur. The incident was caught on camera. As per PTI, a group of lawyers kicked and slapped them while hurling abuses as they were being taken to a prisoner's vehicle after being produced in the court. The clothes of one of the four accused were also torn and the agitated lawyers raised slogans against Pakistain and demanded the capital punishment for them.

There was heavy security deployment on the premises, but as the accused were being taken out of the court, the group of lawyers attacked them before police personnel somehow managed to hustle them into a waiting prisoner transport vehicle.

Hours after they allegedly beheaded the tailor with a cleaver at his shop and shared the clip of the incidents, Riaz Akhtari and Ghouse Mohammad were arrested by cops on Tuesday. In the clip, the accused claimed that they were avenging an insult to Islam as the victim had extended his support to Nupur Sharma through a social media post.

The two others, Mohsin and Asif, were nabbed on Thursday night for being involved in the conspiracy. They were produced before the court here amid tight security arrangements.

"The court ordered police remand till July 12," according to a lawyer.

There were heavy police arrangements on the court premises and several lawyers shouted slogans like "Pakistain Murdabad" and "Kanhaiya ke hatyaron ko fansi do" (give death sentence

...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
to Kanhaiya's killers).

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) transferred the probe to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to explore if there is any terror angle.

Udaipur incident: Curfew relaxed for 4 hours, 10-hour relief to be given on Sunday

[OneIndia] The Udaipur district administration on Saturday relaxed the curfew for four hours which is imposed in seven police station areas in the wake of the killing of a tailor, officials said. Mobile internet services, however, remained suspended. With the situation gradually returning to normal, the curfew will be relaxed for 10 hours on Sunday, the officials said.

Two men hacked to death a tailor, Kanhaiya Lal, with a cleaver at his shop in the Dhan Mandi area here on Tuesday to avenge an "insult to Islam". Following the incident, curfew was imposed in areas falling under the limits of seven police stations -- Dhan Mandi, Ghanta Ghar, Hathi Pole, Amba Mata, Suraj Pole, Bhupalpura and Savina.

"Curfew in the city was relaxed from 12 pm to 4 pm today. Relaxation from 8 am to 6 am will be given on Sunday," Udaipur Collector Tara Chand Meena said. The decision to relax the curfew was taken after reviewing the situation, official sources said.

With the peaceful conduct of Friday's Jagannath Rath Yatra, in which thousands participated, the administration decided to relax the curfew on Saturday, they said.

The BJP leader said that a financial assistance of Rs 30 lakh will also be given to the family of Umesh Prahladrao Kolhe who was killed in Amravati in Maharashtra.

Dawn adds:

On Friday, judges from the Supreme Court of India stated Sharma must apologise to the whole nation after the remarks intensified religious fault lines in India, angered Muslim nations and triggered diplomatic strains.

In India, at least two demonstrators were killed in police fire during protests against Sharma's comments.

Read: Houses razed as India steps up crackdown to stop unrest

In Afghanistan, militant group Islamic State last month claimed an attack on a Sikh temple that killed at least two people and injured seven was in response to insults levelled at Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in India.

Police in New Delhi arrested journalist Mohammed Zubair, a vocal critic of the Modi government, who had helped draw attention to Sharma's remarks through his fact-checking website Alt News and on social media.

A senior NIA official in New Delhi said they were questioning Muslims linked with the four suspects in Udaipur to identify whether they had links with militant networks. Muslims living about 3 kilometres from the tailor's shop where the victim was killed said they felt nervous and feared a social and economic boycott by powerful Hindus residing in Udaipur.

"I know what has been done is barbaric but the community should not be held responsible for the deed of two people," said Mohammad Farukh, a medical representative living in a Muslim-dominated area of the city.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board called the incident "highly condemnable", adding that it was against both Indian law and Islamic strictures.

BJP vehemently denies link to Udaipur killer

[OneIndia] The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has strongly denied links to one of the killers in the Udaipur case. The denial came after the Congress took to the social media to draw the connection.

Sadiq Khan, the chief of the BJP's minority wing in the state said at a news conference that the party has no links to either of the accused. He said that the killing was a failure of the Congress government in Rajasthan.

The Congress alleged that one of the main accused in the brutal killing of a Hindu tailor in Udaipur is a BJP member.

"The killer of Kanhaiya Lal, Riyaz Attari is a member of the BJP," senior Congress leader Pawan Khera said while citing a media report.

"I am not surprised that you are peddling #FakeNews. The Udaipur murderers WERN'T members of the BJP. Their attempt to infiltrate was like the LTTE assassin's attempt to enter the Congress to kill Rajiv Gandhi," the BJP's IT cell chief Amit Malviya said while dubbing it as fake news.

Khera at a news briefing cited pictures and posts linking Akthari to the BJP leaders Irshad Chainwala and Mohammad Tahir.

"It has also come to the fore in the same disclosure that the main accused Riyaz Attari often participated in the programmes of Rajasthan BJP leader and former minister Gulabchand Kataria. Not only this, but pictures of the main accused Riyaz Attari attending the meetings of the BJP's Rajasthan minority unit are also in front of the world," Khera said.

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India-Pakistan

Islamic scholars invite Salman Rushdie for debate on Islam and prophet's life

2013-01-28

Some Islamic scholars have made an open invitation to controversial author Salman Rushdie for a debate.

The scholars, who also happen to be the members of powerful All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), want Rushdie to join them for the debate on Islam and the prophet's life.

The invite came during a seminar in Mumbai on Sunday. Rushdie reportedly wants to visit Mumbai to promote Deepa Mehta-directed movie Midnight's Children, based on his novel by the same name.

The scholars were of the view that banning Rushdie or giving out death threats to him would serve no end. Instead, he should be engaged in an informed debate.

The move comes as a major change of stance from the members of Muslim community towards Rushdie. Various Islamic groups had earlier opposed the author's visit to India ever since his controversial novel Satanic Verses created a storm in the 1980s. They had cautioned the organisers of five-day Jaipur Literature Festival, which concludes on Monday, against allowing his participation.

The offer for debate came from senior lawyer and Muslim board member Yusuf Muchala and a professor of Law at Aligarh Muslim University, Dr Shakil Samdani.

However, the invite itself has triggered an immediate debate with the hard line Muslims rejecting the offer. Some of them said that the debate would give Rushdie an opportunity to hurt Muslim sentiments again.

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India-Pakistan

Deoband fatwa: It's illegal for women to work, support family

2010-05-12

Darul Uloom Deoband, the self-appointed guardian for Indian Muslims, in a Talibanesque fatwa that reeked of tribal patriarchy, has decreed that it is "haram" and illegal according to the Sharia for a family to accept a woman's earnings. Clerics at the largest Sunni Muslim seminary after Cairo's Al-Azhar said the decree flowed from the fact that the Sharia prohibited proximity of men and women in the workplace.

"It is unlawful (under the Sharia law) for Muslim women to work in the government or private sector where men and women work together and women have to talk with men frankly and without a veil," said the fatwa issued by a bench of three clerics. The decree was issued over the weekend, but became public late on Monday, seminary sources said.

At a time when there is a rising clamour for job quotas for Muslims in India and a yearning for progress in the community that sees itself as neglected, the fatwa, although unlikely to be heeded, is clearly detrimental.

Even the most conservative Islamic countries, which restrict activities of women, including preventing them from driving, do not bar women from working. At the peak of its power, the Taliban only barred women in professions like medicine from treating men and vice versa. But there was a never a blanket ban on working, although the mullahs made it amply clear that they would like to see the women confined to homes.

The fatwa, however, drew flak among other clerics.

"Men and women in Sharia are entitled to equal rights. If men follow the Sharia, there is no reason why women can't work with them," said Rasheed, the Naib Imam of Lucknow's main Eidgah Mosque in Aishbagh.

Mufti Maulana Khalid Rasheed of Darul Ifta Firangi Meheli -- another radical Islamic body which also issues fatwas -- criticized the Deoband fatwa as a retrograde restriction on Muslim women.

The fatwa was in response to a question whether Muslim women can take up government or private jobs and whether their salary should be termed as `halal' (permissible under the Sharia) or `haram' (forbidden).

Well-known Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawwad, however, justified the fatwa. "Women in Islam are not supposed to go out and earn a living. It's the responsibility of the males in the family," he said. "If a woman has to go for a job, she must make sure that the Sharia restrictions are not compromised," he added, citing the example of Iran, where Muslim women work in offices but have separate seating areas, away from their male counterparts.

In Lucknow, a city with strong secular and progressive traditions, where Muslim families train their daughters to be doctors, engineers and executives, there was a sense of shocked disbelief even in conservative quarters that such a decree could come from those who consider themselves to be advocates of the community.

"I am also a working woman and also ensure that my Sharia is not compromised," said Rukhsana, a lecturer at a girl's college in Lucknow and a member of the executive committee of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB). "It's not necessary that one would have to go against the Sharia when going to work."

"Name one Islamic country which does not have a national airline and does not hire airhostesses? If I know correctly, even the Saudi Airlines has hostesses and they don't wear a veil," said Shabeena Parveen, a computer professional in the city.

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India-Pakistan

The Mumbai Terror Apologists

2008-12-25

By Sankrant Sanu

The attacks in Mumbai have brought forth a parade of subtle and not-so-subtle denial. The sound of gunfire and the counting of the dead had not yet been finished in Mumbai when the terror apologists had already explained it. Aryn Baker writing in Time Magazine, spoke of how "the roots of Muslim rage run deep in India." His article meandered over economic disparities faced by Indian Muslims and the need for justice, else the people like the gunman in the Oberoi Trident Hotel would "keep calling." Tariq Ali stated, that India needs to look closer to home to Kashmir where "conditions have been much worse than Tibet." Martha Nussbaum, writing in the Los Angeles Times about the Mumbai attacks focused her entire article on the terrible doings of the "Hindu Right." Arundhati Roy, asked us to "contextualize" the Mumbai attacks as a choice for India to make between "justice and civil war." And parts of the Pakistani blogosphere and Pakistan television and sites like countercurrents.org were alive with murmuring of a conspiracy by--who else?--Hindus, Jews and Americans, all to defame Muslims. Practically all these Ostrich-like responses, burying their head in the sand with various forms of denial and apologia, chose to ignore the elephant sitting in the room--the reality of Pakistan-based Islam-enabled terrorism. Sacrificing this elementary truth to the gods of politically correctness, helps no one--including the many Muslims, among them Pakistanis, who are genuinely aghast at these acts.

The first kind of apologia is denial. This generally takes the form of elaborate conspiracy theories--such as the most popular theory doing the rounds of the Muslim world after the 9/11 attacks, "the Jews did it." For what? "To blame the Muslims" of course. It appears that the entire world is engaged in the construction of elaborate hoax plots to kill themselves simply to blame Muslims. The version doing the rounds in the Mumbai terror attacks was that the attackers were Hindu, evidenced by the fact that one of the photographs of a suave young man, casually toting an AK-47 with a back-pack full of ammunition, showed him wearing a thick red band on his arm. "Tying a red thread or cord around the wrist is a Hindu practice" proclaims the blog, titled "Evidence being deliberately ignored" perhaps not quite aware that the Hindu practice involves a sacred thread or mauli, not a broad band, though at least one report pointed out that they were specifically instructed to wear a red band to cause confusion. And wearing a band is hardly clinching evidence versus the spate of satellite, phone, ordnance-based and confessional evidence that is available. Already this "clinching" evidence of the "Hindu band" has been picked and quoted up by numerous people with Muslim names posting comments on the news as incontrovertible proof of the conspiracy. But the conspiracy theory proponents are not found only in the anonymous blogosphere. It is broadcast as the explanation on mainstream Pakistani TV. No less than Maulana Syed Nizamuddin, All India Muslim Personal Law Board general secretary, has latched onto the ascription of the Mumbai attacks to Muslims as a conspiracy. Abdul Rahman Antulay of the Congress, in remarks disowned by the party, has come out with his own version of the conspiracy. So the arrest of the Pakistani operative of Lashkar-e-Taiba; the selective targeting of Americans, Britons, Hindus and Jews, the "Western powers" and Yehudi-Hindu "devils" that form the backbone of the Islamist terror universe; the evidence of traced satellite calls to Pakistan, is all rendered meaningless by this single red-band. The explicit instructions they carried to "kill indiscriminately, particularly white foreign tourists, and spare Muslims" that led them to spare the Turkish Muslim couple at the Taj and massacre the 13-year old American girl is of no consequence.

All this, say the conspiracy theorists, is simply a grand plot to "defame Muslims."

Denial is an understandable emotion. There are many Muslims in India and abroad, who go about their quiet lives, just like everyone else. They are neither scholars nor historians delving deep into their texts or constructing grand histories. Their lives revolve around their close circles and their concerns for them. They have been told that Islam is a religion of a peace, the greatest religion, and that is enough for them. They cannot identify with these mass-killers and fear being associated with them. They have seen good Muslims all around them, in their friends and family. Denial, then is an understandable response at being told that the killers are Muslim espousing Islamic causes.

The second form of apologia is the apologia of "just cause." This form of apologia bandies about every imaginable excuse--economic disparities, the pulling down of the structure of the Babri Masjid, the situation in Kashmir, the riots in Gujarat, the alleged persecution of "minorities" in India and so on and so forth as the reason for terror. All this must apparently be fixed, we are told, before the terror will go away. The choice as the doyen of selective apologia, Arundhati Roy, herself informs us in an article about the Mumbai attacks that the choice is between "justice" for all these things and "civil war" in India. How that relates to Pakistan-based terror groups with a pan-Islamic mission killing Jews in Mumbai is somehow lost in the fog of her own picturesque prose. Yes, somehow, the persecution of the Hindu minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh to the point of elimination in Pakistan and to truly genocidal proportions in Bangladesh, has yet to generate bands of Hindu terrorists turning into random mass-murderers in those countries. By contrast, Muslims have increased, both in absolute numbers and in percentage terms in independent India. These are simply facts to be acknowledge. Severe genocidal persecution would show up in census data. Ask the Tibetans. The Tibetan genocide by the Chinese, a real genocide in an age of hyperbole, in which over 1 million Tibetans have been killed, their monasteries have been destroyed and their identity and culture under attack has continued for decades, have scarcely turned Tibetans into taking AK-47's into their hands and blasting Chinese tourists in Mumbai. The Ahmediyas, an unorthodox Muslim sect, are likewise a severely persecuted minority in Pakistan who have not take recourse to terror. Nor did Buddhists the world over start blowing people and declare Muslims as their enemies because of the great injustice in the destruction of the magnificient Bamiyan Buddhas, a marvel of far greater grandeur than the obscure and relatively insignificant Babri Masjid, by the Taliban.

Who remembers the riot in India a few years ago where a particular community was targeted and hundreds were killed and over twenty thousand people were rendered homeless? This is not Gujarat 2002 but something that took place after that--Assam in 2003. Its victims were "Hindi-speaking" Biharis living in Assam, some for generations. It is a riot that has virtually vanished from history. No "Concerned Citizens" tribunal went to do a probe. No Nussbaum's write about it. No campaigns will be launched to deny the Chief Minister of the state at the time (anyone remember the name?) a US Visa. No University Chairs will be created in its name. There is not even an entry in Wikipedia. The Biharis are among the poorest and most underprivileged groups in India, many of them facing discrimination as they seek employment as migrant laborers across India. One wonders why the Biharis have not unleashed a reign of terror across India, despite being the repeated target of attacks, most recently in Mumbai itself. When Poverty, discrimination, even selective targeting during riots and killings from Assam to Mumbai is amply available to Biharis as a justifying "context."

The final apologia is the apologia of mitigating circumstances--that of poverty and lack of education. Among its recent proponents--none other than the good doctor Chopra, amiably turning Larry King's questions on the Mumbai attacks into the "root causes" of "poverty", "education" and lest we forget, "fundamentalist Hindus." In the bliss generated by the chanting of mantras and the counting of dollars, while carefully distancing himself from Hinduism to skillfully market himself to the broader American public, Dr. Chopra also distanced himself from reasoned analysis. If poverty and lack of education were the root causes, it is strange that most of the 9/11 suicide-attackers were both well-to-do and educated as is Osama Bin Laden himself. The "Indian Mujahideen" that claimed responsibility for recent bomb blasts included well-educated and well-off software engineers and college students. Of course all these arrests have already been dismissed by the apologists as part of the unending conspiracy against Muslims. The Versace T-shirt wearing Lashkar-a-Toiba attacker in Mumbai who gleefully shot down bystanders and police officers alike may have been poor, but it was not poverty that turned him into a lethal killer. That required something else. The trained Mumbai attackers had little problem using the GPS or Google Earth to carry out their blood-soaked plots. Neither poverty nor lack of education is the "root cause" propelling these cold-blooded and merciless killers.

This is not to say that innocents, Muslims and others, are not targeted by the Indian State or that the Indian police is not often sloppy, venal and corrupt. The problems with the Indian state are manifold and are the subject of other writings. However, the Indian state is by- and-large an equal-opportunity oppressor in addition to being blissfully incompetent. But its acts alone do not yield clues into the phenomenon of terrorism by Islamic groups in India.

By their choice of targets, and by the causes they espoused, there is sufficient cause to conjecture that the Mumbai attackers were Muslims, mostly from Pakistan, fighting for what they considered as Islamic causes. They were specifically indoctrinated using Islamic concepts and the promise of Islam-justified heavenly rewards. And, in this case, they were specifically the product of the terror apparatus from Pakistan. Now whether Islam is properly or improperly used and how deeply the Pakistan state is implicated are reasonable follow-up research questions.

But we can ask these questions properly once we go past the three forms of apologia. Whether or not other Muslims agree with their actions, the first step is to admit the existence of Islam-inspired terror groups. Denial and apologia, both by Muslims and by others on their behalf, is much more damaging to Muslims. This is because, even when the thought censors of political correctness refuse to look at this inconvenient truth, it doesn't go away--it simply becomes part of private conversation rather that open public discourse. And it is these private conversations, about anti-Muslim conspirators on the one hand and all-guilty Muslims on the other, which are far more dangerous to the future of a harmonious India.

On the other hand, once we plainly admit of Pakistan-based Islam-inspired terror without pretending it away, we are able to examine it in the light and come up with possible solutions. This will be the subject of the next article.

Sankrant Sanu is an independent writer based in Seattle.

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India-Pakistan

Marriage registration not Islamic, says Muslim board

2008-01-24

Opposing the recent Supreme Court order making marriage registration certificates mandatory, the New All-India Muslim Personal Law Board on Wednesday said the community would not accept the directive, as it was an infringement of the Muslim personal law.

Mohammed Hashmi Kanpuri, a member of the board, stated that each and every Muslim was bound with Shariat laws, given by Islam and guaranteed by the country's Constitution. "Any marriage in Islam is certified by three people including a Kazi, and there is no need for any other certification," he said. "Muslims are governed by their own rules which are different from the rules of other communities," said Mr Hashmi.

If Mo' didn't say it, it ain't so, etc, etc, etc ...

He stated that according to Shariat law, a girl can marry once she attains the age of 16 years, whereas the Constitution allows marriage only after the girl reaches the age of 18.

Taking a swipe at the government's anti-terrorism policies, another board member, Tauqeer Raza, said the community was being victimised in the name of curbing terrorism. "Every time, a terrorist act takes place, Muslim youth are blamed and taken into custody on mere suspicion, whereas the real culprits are never caught," he said.

How 'bout turning the 'real culprits' over?

The board members were of the view that all the governments in power have adopted the policy of 'use and dump' whenever the issues relating to Muslims have come up.

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India-Pakistan

Deobandi photo fatwa creates flutter

2007-09-07

A fatwa issued by Darul-uloom Deoband in Saharanpur district banning photography for Muslims has created a flutter in the community and beyond.

It's not nearly as big a flutter as the one banning fire - too Zoroastrian - was.

Somehow they never manage to ban AK-47s even though those were also created by infidels.

The fatwa has called photographs unlawful and against Shariat. Interestingly, the Islamic seminary has made it compulsory for students to afix their photographs in admission forms. It has also not taken into account that photographs are mandatory all over the world for those applying for Haj pilgrimage and passports.

The fatwa was issued in response to a query on photography by an Assam-based NGO by four senior clerics of Darul Ifta (fatwa section) of the seminary. The clerics are Mufti Habib-ur-Rehman, Mufti Zain-Ul-Islam, Mufti Mehmood and Mufti Zafiruddin. They stated that photography, which includes taking pictures or posing for picture, was completely against Shariat. Mufti Arifuddin, a senior faculty member at the Darul-uloom Deoband (Waqf) in Saharanpur, told TOI, "Taking photographs is completely proscribed under Shariat.''

They seem to lack the gene to feel shame when they say or do stoopid things, don't they?

Asked about the seminary's directive to students to affix their photos in admission forms, Mufti Arif said photographs were allowed only when mandatory. "The ban applies on photography during marriages and other social functions or for commercial use,'' he said. Asked about passports particularly for Haj pilgrimage, he said since Islam gives importance to intentions, photographs clicked for such purposes can be permitted. "But even such photographs must not be distributed or kept with oneself with the intention of showing it to others or for the heck of it,'' said Maulana Khalid Rasheed, member of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board and Imam of Aishbagh Eidgah in Lucknow.

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India-Pakistan

Forward Bloc wants Taslima deported

2007-08-22

LUCKNOW The Forward Bloc (FB), a constituent of the Left alliance supporting the United Progressive Alliance at the Centre, has come out openly against the stay of controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen in Kolkata.

West Bengal Assembly Deputy Speaker B.P. Ghosh, who received a memorandum from nine Muslim organisations here yesterday, said that the FB would press for her deportation from India so that nobody should be allowed to hurt the feelings of other people. Naib Imam Eidgah and member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Maulana Khalid Rashid led the delegation of Muslim organisations, including the Jamat-e-Islami, the Ulema Council of India and the Jamiat-e-Ulema, to demand the cancellation of Taslimas extended visa in India.

Ghosh, who was here to meet the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Speaker Sukhdeo Rajbhar, said: Secular society does not allow attack on other religions and people are free to have their own faith. I will forward the memorandum to the government for action. I will ask the Centre to pack her off to Bangaldesh.

"People should be cautious in their free expression so that it does not lead to communal trouble," he added.

Fred noted elsewhere tonight how freedom of thought is the most essential and fundamental freedom: protect that and all your other freedoms follow. Taslima should have, in a country that calls itself a 'democracy', the right to be insulting to another religion, as long as she understands that she might be insulted in turn. What the folks in this article want isn't the right and opportunity to respond, they want her dead. To the extent they can kill/silence/deport her, India isn't yet the democracy that it needs to be.

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India-Pakistan

Nasreens security increased after fatwa

2007-08-19

KOLKATA, India - Security was stepped up for the exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen on Saturday after the controversial author was issued with a death threat, police said. The move came after radical Muslim cleric Majidulla Khan Farhad on Friday accused Nasreen of defaming Islam and announced an unlimited financial reward to anybody who would kill her, according to the Press Trust of India.

The Indian coppers need to pay a 'visit' to Farhad.

Police in plainclothes have been posted in and around Taslimas flat in the wake of the threats of Muslim clerics after Friday prayers at a city mosque, city deputy police commissioner Gyanwant Singh told AFP.

The death threats against the author came just over a week after Nasreen was physically attacked by radical Muslims in Hyderabad during the launch of a translation of one of her novels. Other ~~murderous~~ clerics in Kolkata backed the call of Farhad, who is from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, and accused the author of insulting Prophet Mohammad in her writings. Muslims in the country will not tolerate an insult to the prophet, said Syed Nuroor Rehman Barkati, cleric of the Tipu Sultan Mosque in the heart of the city.

Taslima is fanning communal passions in India by her writings. We will hold protests if she does not leave the country within a month, Barkati told AFP by telephone. Our fatwa (religious edict) against her is a death threat. We have given her a months time to avoid it, he said.

However, on Saturday, the home ministry extended Nasreens visa for another six months.

Nasreen remained confined to her home on Saturday. Though she was shocked by the attack on her by the Muslim group in Hyderabad, Nasreen has said she has no intention of leaving India, which she described as her second home and a good place to live in. She has said she would like now to become an Indian citizen.

She should come to the U.S. She's an American born in the wrong place.

The author was forced to flee her homeland in 1994 after radical Muslims decried her writings as blasphemous and demanded her execution. Nasreen has incensed conservative Muslims for writing a novel Lajja or Shame depicting the life of a Hindu family facing the ire of Muslims in Bangladesh. The book is banned in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

Nasreen, who is also a doctor, has also lived in self-exile in Europe and the United States but has lately been living in India.

It was the second death threat against the author in just a few months. In March All India Ibtehad Council, a splinter group of the influential All India Muslim Personal Law Board, offered a 500,000-rupee (12,000-dollar) bounty for the extermination of the notorious woman.

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India-Pakistan

Indian Muslim group calls for beheading of writer

2007-03-17

LUCKNOW, India - An Indian Muslim group has offered a 500,000 rupee (11,319 dollar) bounty for the beheading of controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen.

The president of the All India Ibtehad Council said on Friday he had declared the reward for anyone who carried out the quatal or extermination of the notorious woman. Taslima has put Muslims to shame in her writing. She should be killed and beheaded and anyone who does this will get a reward from the council, Taqi Raza Khan said in a statement received in the northern city of Lucknow.

Perhaps the Indian government can comment on why the 'Council' hasn't yet been arrested for incitement?

The council, based in Bareilly town also in Uttar Pradesh state, is a splinter group of the influential All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Khan said the only way the bounty would be lifted was if Nasreen apologises, burns her books and leaves.

Nasreen has incensed conservative Muslims for writing a novel Lajja or Shame depicting the life of a Hindu family facing the ire of Muslims in Bangladesh. The book is banned in Muslim-majority Bangladesh along with her autobiographical works on grounds of being anti-Islamic.

The author was forced to flee her homeland in 1994 after radical Muslims decried her writings as blasphemous and demanded her execution. She is seeking permanent residence or citizenship in India.

I'd grant her asylum in the U.S. today.

Khans bounty was not a fatwa, as he was not a senior enough cleric to issue Islamic decrees.

Seems as if he's senior enough to advocate killin'.

But it drew swift condemnation from one of South Asias most powerful Muslim seminaries. Clergy of the Sunni seminary Dar-ul Uloom in Deoband in Uttar Pradesh, a state with a large Muslim population, said the call to behead Nasreen was un-Islamic and that clergy should not issue such fatwas. Unnecessary edicts increase friction in society and people of other religions start treating Islam as a barbaric religion, Mufti Arif, who sits on the board of the fatwa committee of Dar-ul Uloom, told AFP by telephone.

We non-Muslims do get a little uppity that way ...

But Arif backed Khans call for 45-year-old Nasreens expulsion from India.

So it's not all roses for Nasreen.

There was no immediate comment from Nasreen who has lived in self-exile in Europe and the United States, but has lately been living in India. Nasreen has been spending most of her time in Kolkata, state capital of the eastern state of West Bengal which shares the same language and much of the culture of Bangladesh.

But she has also faced problems in India. In 2004, an Indian Muslim cleric offered a reward of 20,000 rupees to anyone who blackened her face, an action considered a grave insult. Following the threat, Indian police have given her security.

Earlier this week, the writer made an impassioned plea to her second home India to grant her citizenship. I have been banished from my country. India is my second home. I have been granted a six-month visa but citizenship is being repeatedly refused to me, the author said. If I cant live in my own country, and if I have to stay close to home where I can speak my mother tongue, write in my own language, India is the second option. Where else will I go? she asked.

The writer said she will soon make a fresh application for citizenship. The Indian government has not commented on her request for citizenship.

I understand her wanting to be in her own culture and language. But if that doesn't work come here.

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India-Pakistan

Uttar Pradesh cop's report angers clerics

2006-12-01

A sensational report by a top Uttar Pradesh police official branding Phulwarisharif-based Imarat Sharia as a "den of terrorists" kicked off a major controversy which forced UP CM Mulayam Singh Yadav to hastily suspend additional director general of police (Railways) B K Bhalla. Reacting sharply to the "slanderous' report, Amir-e-Shariat Maulana Syed Nizamuddin said it was a huge conspiracy to defame a respected Islamic institution. The cleric, who is also general secretary of All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), had demanded immediate action against the official.

The report, printed in a booklet form, had been distributed at the police week function organised by the UP IPS Association recently. It alleged that the Imarat was a den of terrorists where over 200 anti-national elements having links with the ISI, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other groups and terrorist from Bangladesh were taking shelter.

The Amir-e-Shariat reacted, saying: "I am shocked and pained to see the newspaper reports quoting the UP police official's report. It is nothing but a bundle of lies and it exposes the faces of the forces hell bent on defaming Muslim institutions."
"Lies! All lies!"
The Maulana said Imarat Sharia, Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand, was established by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1921 and since then all top politicians, Presidents and Prime Ministers have visited it. President A P J Abdul Kalam visited the institution two years ago, he said adding that even UP CM Mulayam Singh Yadav visited the famed institution.

The controversial report not only accused renowned Islamic institutions but also criticised Indian foreign policy which has enraged the Centre too. The Centre, sources said, is believed to have taken strong exception and UP CM was asked to initiate immediate action against the official.

Apart from being ADG (Railways), Bhalla was also holding charge of ADG (Police Radio). He was supposed to speak on this matter at an academic session during the police week celebrations but had been dissuaded by his colleagues, who found the report quite inflammatory.

The report, in fact, was based on information reported by an inspector of GRP in the wake of bomb blast in a train at Jaunpur last year. Bhalla, without ascertaining facts, lifted that information and made it a detailed report and thought it fit to get it printed in a booklet form and got it distributed.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, All-India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawrat and other organisation also condemned the Bhalla report and urged the Centre and the UP government not only to take strong action against the police official but also rid the police of "communal elements."

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Olde Tyme Religion

Indians demand pope apologises

2006-09-18

Indian Muslim leaders and political parties have demanded an apology from Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks implicitly linking violence and Islam. The chief cleric of the 17th-century Jama Masjid mosque in New Delhi said the comments were a deliberate attempt to hurt the feelings of Muslims worldwide. "He should apologise to the Muslims of the world," said Syed Ahmed Bukhari. "What the Pope said is absolutely wrong. Prophet Muhammad preached only love and peace."

"And if you don't agree, we'll kill you all!"

The main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the pontiff's remarks could create "hurdles in the way of world harmony".

"The pope should immediately clarify his position and if his reported statement is true, he should apologise," said BJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi in New Delhi.

The ruling Congress party also condemned the pope's remarks in which he talked about the "issue of jihad, holy war".

"The pope is not only the leader of a religion, he is also the head of a state and therefore he should be more careful in making statements," Congress spokesperson Satyavrat Chaturvedi told the Press Trust of India.

Protests erupted on Friday in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir where Islamic rebels are fighting Indian rule, New Delhi, the northern city of Lucknow and other cities with Muslims denouncing both the pope and the United States. Maulana Rashid, a member of the powerful All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, said the pope's statement was more insulting than the Danish cartoons of the Prophet, which led to worldwide demonstrations by Muslims after their publication in September 2005.

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India-Pakistan

Deoband's latest fatwa: Muslims can't buy insurance

2006-08-30

The Darul Uloom of Deoband, the supreme body of the majority Sunnis, has declared life insurance as illegal but prominent Shia leaders have opposed the decree.

The Darul Ifta of Deoband, the body authorised to issue fatwas, issued a fatwa saying that interest earned on bank deposits as well as insurance of life is illegal as per the Shariat, the supreme law for Muslims. And that Muslims should not go in for insurance or assurance of life which has been given to them by Allah.

The fatwa, issued by Mohammad Zafeeruddin non August 7, in consultation with the two muftis of Darul Uloom, Deoband says: Life insurance is not permissible because there is interest income in it as well as gambling, which are illegal under Shariat.

The fatwa was issued in response to a question from one Saleem Chisti from Lucknow who was approached by an insurance company to buy a policy and become an agent.

It is najayaz as per the Shariat, said vice-president of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) Maulana Khaleed Rashid. It amounts to not believing in the supreme status of Allah, he said. But his colleague and noted Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Sadiq disagreed: There is nothing wrong in taking an insurance policy. I can say it in the light of the laws followed by the Shia sect. But if another sect has views against it, one should respect that too.

The chairman of the All India Shia Personal Law Board, Maulana Mirza Mohammad Athar, too, said such fatwas are not binding on Shias.

Support for the fatwa among Sunnis, however, was strong. Said Rukhsana Lari, a member of AIMPLB: Insurance is illegal as per the Shariat. Those who are covered under group insurance in their jobs should donate the interest and the maturity benefits. Mufti of Nadwa College too has said that if under certain circumstances one has to take life insurance policy, the interest should not be accepted.

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