NEW DELHI, 13 October — Police fired tear gas and used water cannons yesterday to disperse thousands of Muslims protesting the US-led strikes on Afghanistan.
Muslims poured on to the streets of major cities after Friday prayers shouting anti-US slogans. They burned effigies of US President George W. Bush and the British flag, demanding an immediate stop to the bombings that began on Sunday.
"Death to America. Death to Israel. Taleban, Taleban, we salute you," some 10,000 Muslims chanted at the country’s biggest mosque, the Jama Masjid in New Delhi. In the southern city of Hyderabad and in Srinagar, Muslims pelted police with stones and chanted anti-American slogans.
In Hyderabad more than 50 policemen and civilians sustained minor injuries when a mob turned violent.
Police said they used water cannons and teargas to hold back a mob of youths chanting "Allah-O-Akbar", or "God is Great". In the eastern city of Calcutta, some 4,000 Muslims gathered near a mosque shouting "Long live Bin Laden, down with Bush".
"Don’t worry (Bin Laden), the Muslims will support you in your holy war," they shouted. The government has thrown its weight behind the US war on terrorism. But a section of the country’s large Muslim community — who form about 12 percent of the billion-plus population — have expressed resentment at New Delhi supporting the US campaign. In Srinagar, hundreds of students burned an effigy of Bush, chanting "long live Islam... Afghani warriors, we are with you".
The rally in Kashmir was called by Pakistan-based group Al-Umar, whose leader Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar was one of three militants freed by India in return for the release of passengers on an Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Afghanistan in 1999. Most shops and businesses were shut in Srinagar as a mark of solidarity with Muslims in Afghanistan.
In Delhi, authorities refused permission to allow a march out of the old city. Some of the protesters said they wanted to march to the US Embassy in the diplomatic area of Delhi.
Syed Ahmad Bukhari, the shahi imam of the Jama Masjid, asked the crowds to return home peacefully — but only after a speech in which he called the bombings on Afghanistan an "act of terrorism" and the United States "the biggest terrorist". Riot police stood in the narrow lanes of the old part of the capital as Bukhari addressed the crowd.
"Allah, destroy the United States and Britain. Give strength to the Afghan Mujahedeen," Bukhari led the chant.
The Delhi High Court will hear on Monday a lawsuit urging that the police register a case against Bukhari for making inflammatory speeches calling for a jihad. Abhishek Verma, son of former Rajya Sabha MP Veena Verma, has filed the lawsuit.
Reports say public utilities and food grain ware houses in the capital face threat of a possible militant strike. Lieutenant governor of Delhi, Vijay Kapoor, yesterday directed the government and the Delhi police to ensure foolproof security at vital installations and other sensitive areas. There were specific intelligence inputs regarding the threat of retaliatory attacks by the terrorist groups to protest against the US strikes, said a minister in Delhi Cabinet.
Meanwhile, hundreds of activists of the right-wing Shiv Sena party burned effigies yesterday of Bin Laden and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at an "anti-terrorism" rally in the capital. Waving saffron banners and burning Pakistani flags, the 500 protesters shouted: "Hang Musharraf," "US should attack Pakistan" and "Bomb terrorist camps in Pakistan."
The protesters, led by Shiv Sena’s north India chief J.B. Goyal, were stopped by police as they neared the parliament. In Bombay tight security prevented large anti-US protests. Scores of children near a mosque held placards denouncing the United States, Britain and Israel. "Lord bring destruction on America which is shedding innocent blood..." they shouted. In Madras, some 2,000 slogan-shouting Muslim men and women blocked rush-hour traffic for an hour.
A group of students who had smuggled a British Union Jack through a security cordon set the flag alight as others pounced upon a placard with a caricature of Bush and rained blows on it with shoes and fists.
