RANCHI — Adding one more chapter to Jharkhand's history of blind deaf and stupid belief, an eight-year-old girl was married to a neighbourhood dog in the certainty that it would ward off evil spirits. The event in a village in Dhanbad, 240km from here, earlier this week included all the trappings of a normal wedding including a marriage feast and dowry.
The girl's father, Shankar Munda, was quoted as telling local newspapers that his daughter had grown "dog teeth" on her upper jaws which was considered a bad omen in a world filled with superstitous nutbags . "If the marriage had not been solemnised, our family might have faced some trouble," he reportedly said. Villagers showed little remorse, justifying the incident. "If she had not been married to a dog, it could have invited evil spirits and the village could have faced serious trouble," said Raju Mandal.
Okay, I give. Just how in the world do you drag people like this into the 21st century?
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/22/2005 2:15:16 AM ||
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#1
Once I had a Usenet accident. I didn't mean to subscribe, download headers, and decode those pictures. My mouse slipped. Won't happen again.
#8
...included all the trappings of a normal wedding including a marriage feast and dowry.
Er, including the consummation?
...his daughter had grown "dog teeth" on her upper jaws...
Don't almost all humans have canine teeth?
You know, I'm not really sure this sort of thing is condoned by Islam. I'd think that marrying girls to dogs to ward off evil spirits is the sort of behavior that Islam was meant to oppose.
#13
This one's humorous, but too many of these sub-continental superstitions can be brutal or deadly. I grew up in India (I'm not Indian), and my older sister was raped when she was 8 by a guy who had the Clap, because of this pernicious belief in that area that you can get rid of VD by having sex with a virgin. She didn't know at the time why it happened, but she researched it later in life and learned about this lovely bit of "folklore".
From Compass Direct Anwer Masih was acquitted in Lahore last month by a Judicial Magistrate's Court, making him the first Pakistani Christian ever acquitted of blasphemy in Pakistan's lower courts. All Christian citizens tried on alleged blasphemy charges in Pakistan over the past two decades have eventually been acquitted through appeals to higher courts. But since the lower courts hearing their cases initially convicted them, they remained in prison on death row for additional years until the verdict was overthrown.
Judicial Magistrate Dr. Mohammed Anwar Gondal ruled in the December 17 hearing that the accusations against Masih were based only on hearsay evidence. .... Masih, now 32, was arrested November 30, 2003, and charged with ... "disturbing someone's religious feelings" and slandering a religious prophet. A neighbor of the defendant who had converted from Christianity to Islam claimed that Masih had mocked his new beard and derided Islamic beliefs. The plaintiff now goes by the name of Naseer Ahmed. Masih was held in the Lahore District Jail for six months, until the Lahore High Court noted that no direct evidence had been produced against him and ordered him released on bail on June 4, 2004.
But according to lawyer Justin Gill, representing the Center for Legal Aid and Assistance Settlement in Lahore which defended Masih, his client remains in hiding, unable to be reunited with his wife and four children since his acquittal a month ago. Fanatic extremists from the banned but active Lashkar-e-Mujahideen (Islamic Religious Army) have vowed to kill Masih over his alleged remarks against the prophet Mohammed. In a handwritten threat in Urdu sent to Masih after he was released on bail, the group warned the defendant that only heavy police security at his court hearings on Friday, December 17, had prevented them from shooting him.
"But we will never let you go," the letter said. "We will shoot you whenever we find you alone, since you blasphemed against our holy prophet. We have an earnest desire to kill you because you have infuriated us. We Muslims don't want to see you alive. Someone from our Lashkar-e-Mujahideen will eliminate you one day." ....
While the trial was underway, Masih's accuser once tried to abduct the defendant's young daughters from their school grounds. Masih and his wife have three daughters and a son, ages nine to two years. "I am safe in hiding, but my wife and family, including my parents, have been under pressure because of me," Masih said. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
01/22/2005 1:18:49 AM ||
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Anwer...let me say it for you. allan-worship is another name for Satan-worship.
#3
I am coming to the sad conclusion that the only way the rest of the planet will be safe from this so called religion is to kill every last practioner of it, burn every copy of every manuscript relating to it and to grind every monument and gathering place related to it into dust.
If anyone should say something against this kind of action by the members of the ROP some bastard co-reiligionist of theirs will defend them and say the accuesrs are wrong and that allen will punish the accuser. They will them threaten "dire revenge" against anyone who blasphemes the ROP.
From Compass Direct
A young Christian shopkeeper in Pakistan's Punjab province had his arm chopped off by a Muslim customer who became enraged during a disagreement over a TV rental. Shahbaz Masih, 22, was approached last November 28 by a customer wanting to rent a television set from his video shop in Talwandi, a little village near Chak Jhumra in Faisalabad district. When Masih declined the request, his customer, a 26-year-old butcher named Ahmed Ali, became furious, declaring the Christian had insulted him.
"How dare you, a poor Christian, refuse my request?" he reportedly shouted at Masih before he left the shop. Returning home, Ahmed Ali consulted with his father, Maqsood Ahmed, also a butcher. Shortly afterwards he went back searching for Masih, armed with a butcher's ax. Ahmed Ali forced his way into Masih's house and attacked the shop owner, chopping off his left arm near the elbow. He left the house threatening the victim and his widowed mother, Munawar Bibi, with even more "dire consequences" for the alleged insult he had endured.
Later that same day, Masih was admitted for emergency treatment at the Allied Hospital in Faisalabad. After his discharge from the hospital four days later, the young man was forced to close his shop, take his mother and leave their village to go into hiding. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
01/22/2005 1:06:50 AM ||
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More on the continuing drama of the Murdered Mutt Manager...
Police in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu yesterday filed formal charges against the high priests of the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, a once powerful Hindu religious institution, accusing them of the murder of a temple manager. The charges filed before a local magistrate in this town lists the senior pontiff of the Mutt, Jayendra Saraswathi, as the first accused and the junior pontiff, Vijayendra Saraswathi, as the second accused in the murder case. The 1,873 page charge sheet also lists 23 other accused, one of whom has turned a state witness.
The two pontiffs are charged with ordering the killing of Sankararaman, who was murdered within the temple precincts on Sept. 3 last year. Superintendent of Police K. Premkumar, who is heading a special investigating team, filed the charges in the chambers of the magistrate, although the day was a holiday for courts on account of Eid Al-Adha. "We have enough corroborative and circumstantial evidence to prove the case against all the accused, including the two shankaracharyas," Premkumar said later. The police have filed 178 documents and a list of 370 witnesses along with the charge sheet. But they are mainly relying on the confessional statements of one of the key accused, Ravi Subrmaniam — a building contractor who is alleged to have made the payments to the hired killers. They have also based their case on bank transactions and records of telephone calls between some of the alleged killers and the Shankaracharyas. The accused will be given copies of the charges by Tuesday.
While Jayendra Saraswathi was arrested Nov 11 at Mehboob Nagar in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh, Vijayendra was arrested Jan 12. If found guilty, the accused could get anything from three years rigorous imprisonment to death penalty. The trial though may take a couple of months to begin. A. Shanmugam, lead counsel for the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, said the defense would now formally move the Supreme Court to permit Jayendra Saraswathi to return to the Mutt. The Supreme Court, which granted Jayendra bail last week, had directed him to stay away from the Mutt until the charges were filed. Jayendra is now camping at an ashram at Kalavai, about 40 km from here.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/22/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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I think a graphic of Molaram (sp?) laughing maniacly and holding up the flaming heart from Temple of Doom would go well here...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
RANCHI — Adding one more chapter to Jharkhand's history of blind 
Anwer Masih was acquitted in Lahore last month by a Judicial Magistrate's Court, making him the first Pakistani Christian ever acquitted of blasphemy in Pakistan's lower courts. All Christian citizens tried on alleged blasphemy charges in Pakistan over the past two decades have eventually been acquitted through appeals to higher courts. But since the lower courts hearing their cases initially convicted them, they remained in prison on death row for additional years until the verdict was overthrown. 
Police in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu yesterday filed formal charges against the high priests of the 
