Earlier this week, a mob attacked and ransacked the Christian missionary-run Good Shepherd Convent in Pulwama, in Kashmir over the tearing of a poster by the school authorities, in which the word ?Allah? was written. So violent was the attack that the police used teargas and lathis to stop the mob from burning the school down. The shocked school authorities closed down for five days. The incident seemed innocuous, going by the scant reports received from Kashmir. A group of teachers in the school who were on strike demanding better pay and perks put up a poster listing their demand. They had appealed in the name of Allah. An authority in the school, a nun, tore the poster down, in which inadvertently the word Allah split into two and she threw the poster into the dustbin, the news spread like fire in the jungle that the nun had insulted Allah and the crowd attacked the school. The nun pleaded innocence saying that she did not know that the word Allah was on the paper or that it split when she tore the poster. There was no official reaction from the state government, the various Christian organisations, ?secularists? and of course the ever-vigilant media. Contrast this with the Lucknow incident. The school authorities of Loreto Convent were forcing Hindu girls into participating in a quack spiritual man'smass prayers and occult practices. Some girls even fainted. This was enraging enough for the parents. When questioned the school said that they were a private institution and did not get any aid from the government, which was a veiled statement that they were not answerable to the government. Politicians of all denominations jumped into the condemnation bandwagon and the most TV channels ran discussions, opinion polls and played the video clipping endlessly. Is it that in India crime has a racial content? The same offence when committed by Muslims is ok but when done by a Hindu, it becomes a ?national issue?? (FOC)
