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July 18, 2006
India: Suspected Islamists Arrested After Hindu Temple Visits
The Press Trust of India via the Hindustan Times reports that five Muslims have been arrested after visiting the Kamakhaya temple near Guwahati city in Assam, northeast India.
The five Muslims had twice visited the temple, which is a center of Tantric Hindu worship, and even offered prayers there. A senior police official said that the five were arrested in Guwahati on Sunday at two hotels, in Paltanbazaar area near the railway station. Under interrogation they revealed that they had posed under Hindu names.
The official said: "They could not explain why being Muslims they visited the temple. They are giving confusing and contradictory statements possibly to hoodwink us."
Documents were recovered from the five men, and it is thought that they had promised people jobs in the Indian army.
The men have been named as 60 year old Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Mohammed Shahubbdin, Mir Issa Haque, Sheikh Ashraf Tarafdar and Mohammed Hasmat Raza.
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There have been intelligence reports that Islamic militants were planning to launch an attack upon Guwahati railway station.
The temple of Kamakhaya is located on Neelachala hill, and is the location, according to legend, of where the reproductive organs of Sati (Shakti, the partner of Lord Shiva), had landed. According to myth, Sati had committed suicide, and her body was cut into 51 pieces by Shiva. The location of the uterus/yoni was unknown until it was sought by Kama, the god of love.
The uterus is said to reside in a pool at the temple, and once a year, on the seventh day of the month of Ashaad, the pool turns red for three days, as the goddess "menstruates". The original temple was destroyed in the early 16th century and was rebuilt in the 17th century. Animal sacrifice continues at the temple, though until the 19th century, apparently human sacrifices were carried out there.
Substitutes for human sacrifice, made of flour are sometimes used, though on June 13, 2003, a self-styled sadhu (Hindu sage) tried to sacrifice his 14 month old daughter at the temple, by slitting her throat with a razor. Priests rescued the child, who had a minor neck injury.
Maybe the associations with women, menstruation, and human sacrifice had attracted the interest of fundamentalist Muslims.
Elsewhere in Assam state, two members of the Islamist United Liberation Tigers of Asom (MULTA) were arrested in Kokraihar on Sunday night, and their interrogation is continuing.
UPDATE - 19 July: According to IRNA, the five men held are not local. Two were from Orissa, two from Bihar and one from the state of Jharkhand. A local court has remanded the five men to six days in police custody.
A police official said: "We are probing if the five men have any links with the serial bombings in Mumbai besides other plans to target the Guwahati railway station as we had some intelligence reports about some terrorist strikes in the city."
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 18, 2006 2:38 PM
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