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Islamic court in Kashmir targets Christians


NEW DELHI, India (BP) — Christian workers are fleeing India’s Kashmir Valley after a sharia (Islamic law) court rendered a “guilty verdict” against three Christian leaders and issued a fatwa against Christian schools in mid-December, according to a Jan. 20 Compass Direct News report. And a door-to-door campaign reportedly has been launched to bring converts back to Islam, according to Compass.

The court, which has no legal authority, issued guilty rulings of “luring the valley Muslims to Christianity” against pastor Chander Mani Khanna of All Saints Church in Srinagar in northern India’s Jammu and Kashmir state, Dutch Catholic missionary Jim Borst and Christian worker Gayoor Messah, The Times of India daily newspaper reported.

The three had already left the region apparently due to rising tensions.

The sharia court, headed by Kashmir Grand Mufti Bashir-ud-din Ahmad, also “directed” the state government to take over the management of all Christian schools in the region, The Times added in its Dec. 19 report.

“I fled with my wife and children, as I was not feeling safe in Srinagar,” a Christian worker from Kashmir told Compass on condition of anonymity. “A group of Muslims visited my house twice, threatening my parents with a social boycott if they failed to produce me.”

The source said he and some of his friends left Srinagar — one of the largest cities in India not to have a Hindu majority — a few days before the sharia court ordered three Christian workers to leave Kashmir Valley, located in the Muslim-majority region of the state.

Another source told Compass that some men had visited his family and those of his friends in Srinagar asking for their whereabouts.

“They had the names of all my local Christian friends when they came to my parents’ house, and they asked for the names of more Christians in the area,” the source recounted. “Muslim men are going to every believer’s home and asking their families to ensure that their children return to Islam. They are using Islamic scriptures to persuade the families, warning that if their members do not reconvert their households will face ostracism.”

The source added that those who have fled may not be able to return to their homes for at least a year.

“We have our family with children — where should we send our kids to school?” he said. “Where should we stay? We don’t have any answers.”

The men who are visiting Christians’ homes are sent from the many committees that the sharia court has formed to prevent conversions, the source said. The mufti could not be contacted for comment.

Separately, well-known Muslim clergyman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has launched a website, www.tahafuzeiman.org, titled “Council for Protection of Faith,” for a committee formed in November 2011, “after numerous cases of apostasy came into light” and “to thwart nefarious designs of pervasive forces and the deep-rooted conspiracy of making youth apostate and defectors by giving them concessions and benefits secretly.”

Besides the “guilty verdict” against Khanna, Borst and Messa, mufti deputy Nasir-ul-Islam reportedly said an investigation against Parvez Samuel Kaul, principal of a local Christian missionary school, is underway.

The court also ordered all Christian schools to teach Islam and other faiths.

“Given the Muslim majority character of the valley, the Muslim students should be taught Islam, and daily prayer written by Syed Mohammad Iqbal should also be sung in the morning prayers,” Nasir-ul-Islam told The Times of India.

Muslim leaders began to rally against Christians after a video posted on YouTube last October showed Muslim youth being baptized at the All Saints Church. Soon thereafter, the sharia court “summoned” Khanna to explain why Muslim youth were converted and whether they were offered money.

State police arrested Khanna on Nov. 19 on charges of hurting religious sentiments of Muslims by “converting” their youth. He was released on bail Dec. 1. The court later summoned Borst, but he asked the mufti to meet him at his church site. The mufti declined. The court found Christian worker Messah “guilty” because he was also seen with Khanna in the video.

The All India Christian Council warned that the sharia court’s verdict could encourage extremist elements to indulge in violence.

“The church does not accept as genuine any conversion brought about by fraud or force,” John Dayal, the group’s secretary general, said in a statement.

Dayal pointed out that a fact-finding team that went to Srinagar late last year found no evidence of force or fraud in baptisms. “Each baptism has been proven to be voluntary.”

There are only about 400 Christians in the Kashmir region, with 300 of them living in Srinagar, according to the fact-finding team.

The council also said the Christian community does not accept the jurisdiction of the sharia courts anywhere in India.

The sharia court was careful in its “verdict,” one of the area sources observed, noting that the three who were ordered to leave are not permanent residents of Kashmir.

The source also questioned the fatwa against Christian schools. “The court issued a fatwa against Christian schools because some business-minded Muslims want greater control over these schools, which are known for providing quality education,” he said.

Local residents saw an element of politics behind the tensions. The fact-finding team, which visited Kashmir from Nov. 29 to Dec. 2, learned from local people that some extremist groups and other vested interests had been seeking to use the issue of conversion in their confrontation with the state government, political parties and moderate Islamic groups.

They were “looking to score political points against each other, and any excuse was good enough to foment trouble,” one resident said. The state government apparently sided with the extremists to preempt any unrest, local residents told the fact-finding team.

While most Muslims in Kashmir are peaceful adherents of Sufi Islam, some are influenced by Wahhabism extremism.
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Vishal Arora, based in New Delhi, writes for Compass Direct News (www.compassdirect.org). Based in Santa Ana, Calif., Compass focuses on Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith. Used by permission.

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