Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Book desecrated on 9/11 turns out to be Merriam-Webster Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary, Fourth Edition

Seventeen civilians, including a woman and a police constable, were killed and many more injured in eight different incidents of firing by police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) after protests broke out across the occupied Kashmir on Sunday against alleged desecration of the holy Quran in New York. Protesters turned violent at certain places and torched government buildings besides a Christian missionary school. Protests began after an Iranian News Channel, Press TV, broadcast the images of desecration on Saturday evening and the clippings were circulated among the Internet users through the Facebook and other social networking sites. The IHK government has now banned the TV channel. “The transmission of Press TV in held Jammu and Kashmir has been banned with immediate effect,” occupied J&K’s state chief secretary SS Kapur said in a news conference.

As soon as the news of the desecration spread, protests began in the city outskirts and rural areas that continued throughout the night. Slogans condemning the desecration and in support of independence were heard from mosque loudspeakers at several places across the valley. The government had earlier clamped down a strict curfew across Srinagar and six major towns in the valley after three government offices were torched on Eid. As soon as the day began, protests broke out with people taking to the streets and defying curfew at many places.

Five persons were killed in north held Kashmir Tangmarg town when protesters torched a Christian missionary school and several government installations. Later, the mob ransacked the local police station. Police fired at the mob, injuring several of them. Five of them later succumbed to their injuries.

Sources told our sources that an inflammatory speech by a ruling National Conference worker instigated the people that had assembled in the town from neighbouring villages. "It all went out of control. There was so much of violence," said Abdul Razak, a local resident. "I have not seen so much of violence ever in this place, and now it turns out it was all over a Scrabble Dictionary." [...]
Source: PakTribune, additional reporting by Yitz.

No comments: