NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Indian police stood guard at colleges decorated with heart-shaped balloons in Mumbai yesterday and arrested hundreds of militant Hindus across the country to quell Valentine’s Day protests.
Dozens of party workers of the fundamentalist Shiv Sena, which has disrupted Valentine’s Day celebrations for years, were arrested in Mumbai and in Gwalior, police officials said. In Bangalore and in Mangalore, more than 500 party workers, including the leader of Sri Ram Sena party, were taken into custody on Friday, hours after a court ordered the state to check what it called “violent behavior by moral policemen.”
“All pubs, bars and restaurants and even shops selling Valentine cards are being given protection. We will not tolerate any violence,” said Bangalore Police Commissioner Shankar Bidri. The Sri Ram Sena had cautioned shops, restaurants and pubs from marking Valentine’s Day.
In response, defiant youngsters formed groups on social networking sites such as Facebook and Orkut to go pub-hopping and to send the party pink knickers in a campaign that garnered tens of thousands of supporters from across the world.
“I did not expect this kind of rubbish in Karnataka. Who are these guys to tell us how we should party on Valentine’s Day,” said Sushmita, an IT worker who gave only one name, outside Hardrock cafe in Bangalore. India’s growing numbers of young and independent urban women have become an easy target for some extremists and politicians. In eastern Bhubaneswar city, fundamentalist Hindu groups roamed the streets to break up couples in parks and gardens.
In Ujjain city, Bajrang Dal, another hard-line Hindu group targeted siblings mistaking them for couples. A “brother and sister were chased by activists on bikes. The boy was thrashed before being rescued by the police,” police official Manmeet Narang said.
Members of the Shiv-Sena, blackened the faces of couples at a park at the Moradabad city in northern Uttar Pradesh, the NDTV network reported. They also attacked three couples and cut their hair at the monument to love, the Taj Mahal in Agra.
Activists of a women’s group Dukhtaran-e-Millat also held protests in Indian Kashmir and tore up Valentine’s Day’s cards in a gift shop in state capital Srinagar.
— With input from agencies
