Police in Indian Kashmir used tear gas for the third straight day on Friday to disperse Muslim demonstrators protesting against controversial remarks that appeared in a newspaper about the region's holiest shrine. Angry protesters pelted stones at police in several places in Srinagar. Muslim youths protested for two days earlier this week after the Asian Age quoted Vinay Katiyar, a leader of the powerful Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), as saying a hair in Kashmir's Hazratbal shrine was from a Hindu priest rather than from the beard of the Prophet Mohammad.
Why this deliberate stirring of the Hindu-Muslim pot? Is VHP financed by the ISI or are they just naturally stoopid? Or is the real game much deeper than it appears on the surface? |