Three shot at as Lashkar gets `real’

Lashkar-e-Toiba had yesterday issued three draconian diktats: all Muslim women should wear the burqa or risk getting shot in the leg; all TV channels, except international news channels, should be banned; and state government employees participating in Census operations will be killed.

But a section of the local media and analysts have, however, taken this “statement” with a pinch of salt. They say that the Lashkar does advocate such “Talibanisation” of Kashmir — it has issued similar threats in the past although it hasn’t zealously implemented them. However, there are doubts over the veracity of this statement.

It didn’t come in writing — as is the norm — but was apparently conveyed to a local reporter over the telephone. Also, not many here have missed what they call the “timing” of the threat — a day after General Pervez Musharraf’s speech at the UN and a day before Prime Minister Vajpayee’s address.

In the past, although a few young women were shot for wearing jeans and even cable operators were attacked, the diktat wasn’t issued through the media. And at the forefront of that campaign was another pan-Islamic group, the Harkatul Mujahideen.

Today, the man claiming to be the Lashkar spokesman, Abu Ubaid, reportedly told a local daily that the command council of the outfit had taken the decision and its thrust was to prevent “22,000 govt employees” involved in the Census operations.

In the initial years of militancy, a pro-Iran all-woman fundamentalistgroup, the Dukhtaran-e- Millat (daughters of the Islamic Nation) had waged a war to implement a strict dress code. In fact its members threw colour on the faces of the girls who would not wear a burqa. But this campaign lost its momentum when women, especially college students, began resisting it.