Rock band
girls go into hiding after social boycott threat
________
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Feb 4: 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
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
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
“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.
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