Mir Iqbal
SRINAGAR, Nov 20: Days after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said that it has roped in Muslim clerics (Ulmas’) from other States to campaign for the party in upcoming elections in Jammu and Kashmir; scores of clerics here today staged massive protests against the party.
The protesting Ulmas’ accused the RSS activists of misleading them by saying that they were called to attend a religious function at a hotel here by RSS, but the function was aimed to convince them to vote for the BJP.
These Ulmas’ said that they were informed that a religious function would be held here, organized by Jamiat Ulmai Hind and would be presented by a prominent religious scholar Suhaib-u-Rehman from Delhi.
“Rehman presented an Islamic book titled, ‘Behshat-i-Samar’ authored by a prominent Islamic scholar- Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi and later on, asked us to maintain peace in Kashmir,” they said, adding as if religious heads were working for anti-peace activities.
They added that the RSS workers tried to persuade them to vote for BJP which shocked the clerics. “We had arrived here with an intention to listen religious sermons from top Muslim clerics from Indian state, but we were shocked that the people present in the hotel were trying to motivate us to vote for BJP,” they said.
The protesting clerics said: “RSS members tried to motivate us to vote for BJP and assured the party will ban sale of liquor in Kashmir.”
After RSS workers failed to motivate them, the clerics came out of the hotel and started shouting anti-RSS slogans.
It was after the interference of police and paramilitary personnel deployed outside hotel which protected the RSS activists from public wrath.
As the slogans reverberated in Lal Chowk, shopkeepers downed their shutters in protest which disrupted the normal life for sometime in the area.
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