Rock band girls go into hiding after social boycott threat
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
Despite Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's reassuring
tweets, the teenage members of the Valley's first all-women rock band
have gone into hiding immediately after receiving a threat of 'social
boycott' from the Dukhataarn-e-Millat, a radical women's outfit
Despite Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's reassuring
tweets, the teenage members of the Valley's first all-women rock band
have gone into hiding immediately after receiving a threat of 'social
boycott' from the Dukhataarn-e-Millat, a radical women's outfit.
Coming as it did after the fatwa from Kashmir's head mufti, this
development has halted all support for the band from civil society and
cultural circles.
Left to fend for themselves, the families of Noma Nazir, Farah Deeba
and Aneeka Khalid in the vulnerable neighbourhoods of Chhanpora, Bemina
and Rajbagh have forced the teenagers to snap their contact with all,
especially the media. "We have seized their cellphones and laptops," two
of their relatives revealed to The Hindu. "Their band has been shut."
"Nobody is safe here. The Chief Minister's tweets and the police
can't protect us. We don't want to get caught in politics," one of them
said.
Dukhataarn-e-Millat has in fact avoided issuing a direct threat to
the girls. It has rather innocuously communicated that their continued
performance would force the outfit to call for a social boycott of their
families. "We appeal to the parents of the band members to ask their
children to refrain from singing as it is against Islamic principles. If
they don't follow our advice, we will be forced to announce a social
boycott against them," it said in a statement on Sunday.
The Dukhataarn-e-Millat does not have any history of using firearms.
Founded in 1982 by Syeda Asiya Andrabi, the outfit claims to orchestrate
'peaceful campaigns' against anything it perceives to be contrary to the
tenets, teachings and traditions of Islam. It played a key role in a
campaign to close down cinema, video libraries and wine-shops, which
culminated in the eruption of an armed insurgency in January 1990. Since
then, it has been among the outlawed radical groups in the Valley. In
1992-93, it grabbed the headlines, enforcing the Islamic dress code
allegedly by sprinkling acid on young girls wearing jeans and refusing
to clad the 'Abbaya'. Ms. Andrabi has repeatedly denied having used
acid. The spray, she insisted, was "a harmless ink."
Nonetheless, the Dukhataarn-e-Millat carries the image of a dreaded
outfit for many - particularly those associated with the media, art and
culture - in Srinagar. Ms. Andrabi is the wife of the jailed founder of
the Jamiatul Mujahideen, Ashiq Hussain Faktoo, who now heads a different
political outfit called the Muslim League.
More than fighting Indian troops and the police, the Jamiatul
Mujahideen is known for its anti-media strikes, including banning
publications and kidnapping theatre and television talents.
Police records show that the group was responsible for the
assassination of the former Joint Director of Information, Syed Ghulam
Nabi, human rights activist Hridhay Nath Wanchoo and a couple of
television artists.
The police consider the Dukhtaraan threat more seriously than the
Mufti's fatwa. "Till date, there's no FIR but we are working on certain
inputs," Srinagar SSP Ashiq Bukhari said.
Another senior police official pointed out that many people, from
Mufti Azam Basheer-ud-din to heads of the two Hurriyats Mirwaiz Umar and
Syed Ali Shah Geelani, were all dismissing the December 2012 concert as
'immoral and un-Islamic."
Chief Minister vocal, government mute
With the exception of the reactions from Mr. Abdullah and PDP leader
Mehbooba Mufti, hardly anyone of consequence has supported Pragaash.
Three fresh Facebook pages have come up with nearly 1,000 supportive
posts in the past four days but most of the contributors are either
morphed or believed to be those from outside the Valley. 'Filmmakers'
and music lovers, who have expressed solidarity with the group, are
familiar to a few in the media and cultural circles. Even officials of
the Department of Information and the Cultural Academy have chosen to be
mute spectators.
No association of the film, theatre, music, culture, art or media
circles has come up with a statement of solidarity. Aziz Hajini, the
Sahitya Akademi's convener (Kashmiri), and president Adabi Markaz Kamraz
maintained that they had no knowledge of the developments.
A Kashmir University professor, who runs a representative civil
society group of intellectuals, traders and rights activists, declined
to comment. "Now that the politicians and the clerics are in, it's
really difficult to make a comment," she said. Woman rights activists
Quratul Ain, Ezabir Ali and Hawa Bashir are the three-odd individuals
who unequivocally condemned the hate campaign."Why these double
standards? Don't millions of the Kashmiris enjoy the songs of Raj Begam,
Zoon Begam, Shameem Dev and Jameela Khan for the last many decades? Why
don't these groups object to the extremely objectionable songs and
dances running in our drawing rooms through the local cable TV
channels," asked Ms. Bashir, who taught at the Department of Music at
Government Women's College for more than 30 years. "By their argument,
there's has to be a blanket ban on music in Kashmir."
Pragaash's promoter and organiser Adnan Matoo, who claimed to have
launched the State's first rock band, Bloodrockz, in 2005, refused to
admit that that there was anything objectionable or un-Islamic in the
performance. According to him, it was all a Sufi musical with a number
of Bhule Shah hits - and a remix: mein hoon mushkil mein nazar tou kar
le, faza ke pal mein zara gul kar de.
The Hindu
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