Carrie Nation comes to Kashmir. Islamic tolerance update: they sprayed paint on women who did not wear the veil. From BBC News, with thanks to Vikrant:
The all-women vice squad opposes liquor and prostitution
Eight veiled women gather outside a shop selling alcohol on the ground floor of a hotel in Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir and start ransacking it.They chant Islamic slogans.
One of them lights a match to set the shop on fire but is stopped by others for fear that the fire might engulf the entire complex.
The women comprise the Maryam Squad of the Dukhtaran-e-Milat (Daughters of the Nation).
The squad is named after the Virgin Mary.
The chief of Dukhtaran-e-Milat, Asiya Andrabi, herself leads the squad.
Ms Andrabi is a well-known separatist leader who spent a year in jail with her then breastfeeding child.
“According to the Koran, liquor is the mother of all vices. We have been requested by the local residents to destroy this liquor shop here,” she says.
A crowd that watched the women smash liquor bottles, endorsed her claim.
“It has affected our children. We told [the chief minister] Mufti not to open this shop here. But we were told it is a sign of normalcy returning to the state,” one person said.
Another man said: “These women have taken a bold step. We’ll support them.”
‘Illegal’ attacks
There was no sign of the police while the women smashed the bottles of alcohol….
The Dukhtaran-e-Milat launched a campaign for the wearing of the burqa (veil) by Muslim women in the early 1990s.
Its activists sprayed paint on women who did not wear a burqa.
The campaign succeeded but its success was short-lived.
A large majority of women have abandoned the veil.