| Jamaate Islami asks tourists to follow dress code in Kashmir |
SRINAGAR A Kashmiri religious group Jamaate Islami has asked tourists visiting the valley to follow a “proper dress code” and told the tourism department to enforce it.
“Some tourists, mostly foreigners, are seen wandering in short mini-skirts and other objectionable dresses here openly, which is quite against the local ethos and culture and is not acceptable to the civil society at all,” Jamaate Islami said in a statement on Tuesday.
The group said it was the duty of the tourism department to tell tourists to honour local ethos.
“Kashmiris cannot for the sake of their economy give up their divine values at any cost,” it said.
“We need no such guests who can become a cause of derailing the society from the right track and spread immorality and immodesty in the name of tourism.”
Zahid Ali, an advocate associated with the group, said: “Jamaate Islami J&K cautions people against the well designed vicious plans of the anti-Islamic forces who are working here tirelessly to deviate the Kashmiri Muslims from their religious ethos which are indispensable for their identity.”
He said the group was also impressing upon the tourism department not to encourage “this cultural aggression against Kashmiri Muslims and remain vigilant against elements, who, in the garb of promoting tourism, are promoting vulgarity, alcoholism, drug trafficking and other immoral activities.”
The current diktat is reminiscent of the early 1990s when radical groups banned cinema halls, wine shops and beauty parlours, calling these anti-Islamic and against the ethos of the valley.
Kashmir has been witnessing a record number of tourist arrivals this year, both domestic and foreign.
Meanwhile, a recruitment module of the terror group Laskhare Toiba (LeT) has been busted in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla district and seven people have been arrested, police said on Wednesday, adding that a “major terror and subversion plan” has been averted.
Locals were being recruited into the LeT to “execute various terrorist actions” in Sopore, about 50km from here, a police statement said. A Pakistani terrorist called Fahadullah was also operating in the area, it added.
“Police in Sopore town have busted a recruitment module of terrorist outfit LeT, thus averting a major terror and subversion plan of the terrorists. Seven members of the terror module were arrested from different areas of Sopore town and adjoining areas,” the statement said.
It added that “local boys were recruited into the outfit, building a network of LeT operatives who were bent upon executing various terrorist actions in and around Sopore in criminal conspiracy with one Pakistani terrorist code-named Fahadullah, who is operating in Sopore”
Fahadullah had been taking directions from a terrorist code-named Hanzullah, an LeT commander based in Pakistan.
Agencies
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