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Hindus, Muslims burn Valentine's Day cards in India
Reuters ^

Posted on 02/14/2006 5:26:56 AM PST by Alex Marko

NEW DELHI, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Hardline Hindu groups and radical Muslims burned Valentine's Day greeting cards on Tuesday and held protests across India against celebrating the festival of love, saying it was a Western import that spread immorality.

Saint Valentine's Day has become increasingly popular in India in recent years, a trend led by retailers who do healthy business selling heart-shaped balloons and fluffy teddy bears.

But the growing popularity of the day in officially secular, but mainly Hindu India has also sparked protests which have sometimes turned violent.

On Tuesday, protests were held in the capital New Delhi, some towns in the country's south and the only Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir, where an Islamic insurgency has raged since 1989.

About two dozen women separatists, veiled in black from head to toe, rummaged shops and burnt Valentine's Day cards in Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, witnesses said.

"Valentine's Day spreads immorality among the youth," Asiya Andrabi of the Dukhtaran-e-Milat (Daughters of the Muslim Faith), a group of women separatists, said in a statement.

"We appeal to our children to stay away from this western culture."

In Bangalore, India's technology capital, as well as Hubli town, both located in the southern state of Karnataka, groups of Hindu nationalists burnt a big heart-shaped card.

About 50 Hindu activists wearing holy saffron-coloured scarves held a noisy protest in a popular market near the Delhi University campus, a Reuters photographer said.

They burnt greeting cards which they were carrying and shouted "Down with Valentine's Day". (Additional reporting by Sheikh Mushtaq in SRINAGAR)


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: hindu; india; muslims; terrorist; valentinesday
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To: CarrotAndStick
"Such an idiot you are." Speak for yourself. Now, I'm off to chop some carrots.
181 posted on 02/17/2006 6:44:33 PM PST by Hill of Tara
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To: CarrotAndStick
look familiar?
182 posted on 02/17/2006 6:48:33 PM PST by Hill of Tara
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To: Alex Marko
Why those bastards. I would burn a turban on Saturday, but I don't smoke it no more.
183 posted on 02/17/2006 6:51:01 PM PST by gathersnomoss
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To: Hill of Tara

Yeah...sure...LOL. Let me know when you put the crack pipe down.


184 posted on 02/17/2006 7:44:25 PM PST by indcons
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To: indcons

"Let me know when you put the crack pipe down."

Is that all you can say? Pathetic, but not unexpected.


185 posted on 02/17/2006 8:07:35 PM PST by Hill of Tara
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To: Hill of Tara

OK...is the pipe down as yet?


186 posted on 02/18/2006 12:15:48 AM PST by indcons
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To: CarrotAndStick
Jilted lovers have strange ways of taking revenge: Verbal abuse, physical assaults, rapes, kidnappings and even throwing of acid and disfiguring a woman for life.

Looks like a ripe market for new lines of Hallmark cards...

187 posted on 02/18/2006 12:24:21 AM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Hill of Tara
Goa belonged to a civilized Christian Western nation until the Hindus invaded it as part of their expansionist anschluss to oppress the Christians.

http://www.goacom.com/community/associations/goaont/convention/moraes.htm

188 posted on 02/18/2006 12:29:36 AM PST by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: livius

Reflecting a culture where matchmaking is not at the will of the lovers but of the older generation?


189 posted on 02/18/2006 12:34:54 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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To: Hill of Tara

It's significantly less common among Hindus, and educated ones are not afraid to speak against it. Also, Hinduism is pretty much tied to a single country, India, and it knows of at most very scanty means of converting to it. They do not have the "make the whole world bow to Allah by the sword" vision of the mad Mo ites.


190 posted on 02/18/2006 12:39:29 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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