SRINAGAR, 11 February 2006 — The Indian Army was called out by the authorities in Kargil and Leh towns of the Ladakh region of the Jammu and Kashmir state yesterday after widespread violence over the reported desecration of the Holy Qur’an.
“We have called in the army to assist the police in enforcing curfew in both Leh and Kargil towns,” Basharat Ahmad Dhar, the Kashmir divisional commissioner, said by telephone.
Dhar flew to Leh, the administrative capital of the remote Ladakh region to take stock of the volatile situation there following mounting tensions between the local Buddhists and Muslims.
Kashmir police chief K. Rajendra has been camping in Leh for the last three days after clashes broke out between the two communities in the town in the wake of reports that some Buddhists had desecrated the Holy Qur’an and defiled a mosque in the Leh which has a Buddhist majority population.
The clashes erupted Wednesday after torn pages of the Qur’an were found scattered by the road in Leh, police said. Several houses and cars were burnt in the violence, but no injuries were reported.
Over two dozen people have been detained for questioning by police, and authorities have called for a meeting of Buddhist priests and Muslim clerics.
“We are trying to calm tensions down and security has been beefed up across the district,” Rajendra said.
As reports of the alleged desecration reached Kargil, angry Muslims carried out protest marches and attacked the office of the local deputy superintendent of police in the town.
The clashes between Muslims and Buddhists were the first in many years in Ladakh, a normally peaceful region popular with trekkers in the northwestern part of India’s troubled Jammu and Kashmir state.
Jammu and Kashmir has a sizeable Buddhist population in Ladakh and a majority Hindu population in the Jammu region, neither of which supports a separatist revolt by Muslims against New Delhi’s rule in the rest of the state.
In a separate development, nearly two dozen veiled Muslim women stormed gift and stationery shops yesterday in Srinagar, burning Valentine’s Day cards and posters to protest a holiday they say imposes Western values on Muslim youth.
No one was hurt in the half-dozen or so incidents, and police cordoned off the area to prevent the women from marching through Srinagar’s main shopping district to continue their ransacking.
The women were from the Kashmiri Islamic group Dukhtaran-e-Millat, or Daughters of the Community, Kashmir’s only women’s separatist group, whose members are also known for their fiercely conservative social views. “We will not let anyone sell these cards or celebrate Valentine’s Day,” said Asiya Andrabi, the group’s leader, as she held a burning poster in her hand. “These Western gimmicks are corrupting our kids and taking them away from their roots.”
