Jihad in Kashmir update. "Hizbul Mujahedin" means, of course, Party of Jihadists. From AFP, with thanks to Twostellas:
SRINAGAR: A senior policeman and 18 other people were injured after a powerful explosion yesterday in the southern Kashmir town of Anantnag."An explosion has taken place in Anantnag town. Initial reports say it was a powerful explosion," a police spokesman said.
Among the injured was police chief of the Anantnag district, Ravinder Kotwal, who was taken to a hospital in Srinagar for treatment.
The spokesman said militants detonated a bomb when Kotwal was moving in the area in his car along with escort vehicles.
"A few vehicles have been damaged in the explosion, including an escort vehicle," the spokesman said, adding several people have been injured....
None of the rebel groups has claimed responsibility for the blast. The area is a stronghold of the dominant rebel group Hizbul Mujahedin.
The explosion marks the first attack of the new year in Kashmir, a region racked by 15-year-old insurgency against Indian rule.
Bring on the New Year with a bang,fortunate that no more casualties occured.
NAHAMU,NAHAMU,AM
These Jihadists have just about destroyed once thriving Tourist Industry of beautiful Kashmir. Not to mention inflicting hideous atrocities on
Civilians, many of them MUSLIMS WHOM THESE FANATICS ACCUSE OF BEING COLLABORATORS.
MUSLIMS IN INDIA
I found this in a book I was reading, written back in 1958 by Alexander Campbell (THE HEART OF INDIA). I thought it was good for a New Year's laugh:
In Lucknow we have entered the realm of lunatic fantasy. I found Lucknow in a state of public uproar. Past the long dead nawabs' florid tombs; past the "European-style" castle, complete with turrets, battlements, moat, and drawbridges, and now used as a girls' high school; past the railroad station, with its fantastic fluted columns, cupolas, and vast parapets; past the Drug Research Institute, housed in a former palace, and with a gilded umbrella suspended over its dome --- through the crowded streets and alleys of Lucknow - there swarmed endless processions of angry demonstrators carrying banners of protest. Public buildings had been stoned; several people had already been killed in street clashes.
The cause of all the hubbub was a lost dog. A Nepalese visitor to Lucknow had brought with him his pet dog, which he led about on a silver chain. One day lie found the dog gone: either it had strayed or, more probably, someone had taken a fancy to the silver chain, and stolen both. The bereft owner advertised his loss in a local newspaper. He described the missing animal, offered a reward, and explained that the dog answered to the name "Mahmud."
Rioting automatically followed. Furious Moslems, of whom there are a great many in Lucknow, surrounded the newspaper office, howling for blood. To pacify the mob, the police arrested the dog's owner. It was in vain that the unfortunate man explained that, in calling his dog "Mahmud," he had intended no affront to the Prophet; "mahmud," he declared, was merely the Nepalese word for "power." But there are a variety of ways of spelling the Prophet's name. "Mahomet" is one; "Mohammed" is another, and "Mahmud" is a third. To prevent the dog's owner from being lynched, the police wisely smuggled him out of the city jail, and secretly sped him back over the Nepal border-without his dog, which remained untraced. When the mobs discovered that their prey had eluded them, their fury increased. There were fresh riots, and more stone-throwing. The police had a busy time.
Mulk Sangh's wife, Adi, had urged me to visit the Drug Research Institute. So I made my way cautiously through the hot turbulent streets to the Drug Research Institute. The demonstrators over the dog Mahmud were still taking out processions with banners and flags, but neither the Moslems, who were demonstrating, nor the Hindus, who feared that the Moslems might start more communal riots, were interested in a white foreigner. I reached the Institute without incident, and a polite young man in a white coat, with a science degree, showed me round. He seemed somewhat oppressed by the magnitude of the problems that the Institute faced. "Every thing is adulterated," he said hopelessly. "We try to bring the unscrupulous druggists to book, but they are always finding new loopholes. And the Drugs Act is very difficult to enforce: we have so few qualified inspectors. Only the other day in Bombay an unfortunate unemployed man decided to end his family's sufferings: he, his wife, and their seven children were all starving. He spent his last few rupees on arsenic, and the wife mixed it in the food. After taking this last meal, they said their prayers and lay down to die. But in the morning they woke up, perfectly unharmed. The 'arsenic' the man had bought was adulterated." The young man looked at me mournfully. "That is the sort of scandal we are trying to put a stop to."
In the roadway outside the Drug Research Institute a large crowd was being fiercely harangued by a snarling little man in a red fez. He employed all the practiced venom of the professional agitator, and he was putting the blame for the dog on the Congress Party government of Uttar Pradesh. The Moslems who were listening to him cheered lustily.