Lucknow is at this point closed to Western tourists. From Asia Times, with thanks to EPG:
Over the past week, a spate of protests as well as statements from clerics in the city have warned British, US and Israeli citizens to stay away from the state capital. There are also fears that the demonstrations may spread to the rest of the state, with calls being made to prevent foreigners from entering the precincts of the famous Taj Mahal in Agra, 363 kilometers away from Lucknow. India's Muslims, especially Shi'ites, have reacted sharply to the clash between US forces and Shi'ite militiamen last month in which one of the most sacred shrines of the Shi'ites, the shrine of Hazrat Ali, was damaged. Muslims form a sizeable population in Lucknow, as well as in Uttar Pradesh as a whole.Such has been the nature of protests that the British Foreign Office issued a travel advisory on Tuesday warning its citizens against traveling to the city, as well as to postpone visits to holy sites. Visitors have been told to keep a safe distance from particular religious sites such as the imambaras (religious monuments) in Lucknow that are replicas of the holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala that were damaged by fighting in Iraq. It is rare for city-specific travel warnings to be issued as they are usually applied to a country as a whole in the wake of a terrorist attack, threat or such macro parameters. The last time the US and British offices issued a travel warning to its citizens concerning India was in 2002 when Indian and Pakistan relations reached a flashpoint and several signs indicated the two countries could go to war.
Only insane people attack innocent people. Sane people voice their anger in other ways...Sane people look at the entire situation , start to finish, and place the blame where it logically goes. Is America responsible for being in Iraq? NO…Saddam and the cowardly crooked UN are…Did Americans make Muslims use their “holy” place as a military base? NO. The Mosque was damaged because Muslim fighters chose to use the mosque as a military base. But truth is ignored by the insane. The Damage is attributed to Americans...Irrational at best BUT it gets more irrational.
Now Indian Muslims have taken that insane blame of American to a new level...They have decided to blame ALL Americans, even those that are supporting their poverty stricken country with tourist dollars! Talk about biting the hands that feed you? Can India afford to do this? Nope. Do the insane Muslims care? Nope. Should the rest of the Indian Citizens raise up and stop the Muslims? Yep. Will they? Probably not, but time will tell...
I think it is time for Americans to wake up and look around…Where are you going to travel? Travel America first. When you have covered your own country travel in countries that have proven themselves to be friends of America. Why invest your hard earned travel dollars in support of places like France? Germany, Russia, India? Or Egypt? If you must travel in the Middle East…Make your destination Israel.
In November 1979, when Muslims (insurgents, rebels, what shall we call them?) seized control of the main mosque in Mecca, and the Saudis kept announcing that they were on the verge of mopping-up but could never quite do so until, so one has been told, French troops were secretly sent in (presumably, not before reciting the shehada) to do what the Saudi forces were incapable of doing.
But during this time, when the hysteria spread throughout the Muslim world, in Pakistan, the expression of hysteria over the seizure, by one group of Muslims, of the mosque supposedly being protected by the Saudis, those brilliant Keepers of the Two Holy Places, Pakistanis attacked American consulates and embassies, and killed Americans.
It made sense to them. And if, in Najaf and Karbala, Moqtada al-Sadr, who is accused of having killed an important ayatollah some months ago (Khoei?), insists on waging war and defying the local Shi'a authorities, including the ayatollahs with their evident distaste for his primitivism and power-grabs, and the Americans try to prevent him from doing so, it makes perfect (non)sense for the "moderate Muslims" several thousand miles away, in Lucknow, to -- threaten Americans, British, and (of course) Isreaeli tourists. Why stop there? Why not all Infidel tourists, out of all of India -- which, after all, was once part of dar al-Islam, and we all know what that means. Go ahead, India doesn't need tourists, and tourists have no right to visit India, with its ridiculous and illegitimate -- because non-Muslim -- government.
Come to think of it, why should non-Muslims be allowed to travel at all, anywhere? That is a privilege that should be reserved for the Believers.
This is just crap, don't worry about it.
WE know how to treat these beasts, just look at the fantastic Indian human rights record in Kashmir.
Let them riot, the Indian security forces have absolutly no understanding of the term "non lethal force"
The beasts will be taken care of.
WHile all these protests are going on, who is going to answer Dell's helpdesk ?
too funny Bob!
Did these Indian Muslims protest the destruction of Buddha statues in Bamiyan forest of Afganistan?The situation of Shiite Mosque in Najaf is different as it is used for housing terrorists.