All-women separatist squads raid brothels in Kashmir
Izhar Wani
AFP
August 30, 2005

http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050830-052651-6976r

SRINAGAR, India -- A hardline Islamic women's
separatist group said on Tuesday that it had begun
raiding brothels in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir to stamp
out "adultery and the flesh-trade".

Aasiya Andrabi, head of the separatist
Dukhtaran-e-Milat, or Daughters of Faith, announced
over the weekend the formation of all-women squads to
raid brothels in the Muslim-majority state.

"We will expose those indulging in immoral
activities," Andrabi, a fiery speaker who has in the
past voiced admiration for Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin
Laden, told the Current News Agency.

"We raided several places in Srinagar on Monday after
getting calls from people," she said, issuing an
appeal to people to "arrest moral degradation".

The women, traveling in three-wheel auto-rickshaws and
cars, were staging the raids enveloped in head-to-toe
veils in line with strict Islamic tradition, a witness
said.

Police in the state, where separatists have been
waging a bloody battle against Indian rule since 1989,
declined to comment.

But they have been staging raids in Srinagar and other
parts of the Kashmir Valley over the past few weeks on
brothels and made several arrests.

Andrabi, whose husband is in jail on charges of being
a militant, supplied a mobile telephone number for
people to call "whenever you are convinced a man or
woman has entered some place to commit adultery".

Adultery is illegal in the state and carries a
potential jail term.

"During one of the raids, the men immediately fled
from the house but the women were caught and
questioned," she said, adding that the group was
seeking to persuade them to change their ways.

Andrabi, 40, and mother of two sons, said that the
group's members were able to free a woman from two men
who had lured her into becoming a prostitute.

Andrabi said that members had also swooped on
restaurants and Internet cafes where they found
teenage boys and girls. The group plans to talk to
their parents.

The group has earlier smeared black paint on racy
Bollywood film posters portraying revealingly clad
women.

It has also been campaigning for women to veil
themselves fully. The drive has been largely
unsuccessful in the region that espouses a more
liberal form of Islam.

In a break with the past when attitudes toward mixing
between the sexes were more conservative, younger
people in Kashmir are frequently seen dating in
restaurants and walking in parks.
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More about Kashmir at:
http://www.islamawareness.net/Persecution/Kashmir/






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