India Calls For Media Black-Out Of Planned Koran Burning

Young Indian Muslim men burn US flags in Ahmedabad to protest the plans to burn the Koran by a US church. India called on Thursday for the United States to take "strong action" to prevent a planned Koran burning ceremony and demanded a media black-out of the "deplorable act".

By Adam Plowright
NEW DELHI (AFP) – India called on Thursday for the United States to take "strong action" to prevent a planned Koran burning ceremony and demanded a media black-out of the "deplorable act".

A small Florida church headed by pastor Terry Jones plans to torch Islam's holy book on Saturday's anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks despite global outrage and calls from American leaders to abandon the event.

Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram, in a strongly worded statement after a cabinet meeting, said the planned action was "obviously calculated to increase bitterness and strife between religious groups".

India has the world's third-largest Muslim population after Indonesia and Pakistan, calculated to number 160 million in a recent study by the US-based Pew Research centre.

"We hope the US authorities will take strong action to prevent such an outrage being committed," Chidambaram said.

"While we await the actions of the US authorities we appeal to the media, both print and visual media, to refrain from telecasting visuals or publishing photographs of this deplorable act."

Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief imam in New Delhi's biggest mosque, told AFP: "We should ignore such people, but there is now an added responsibility for the United States to rein them in.

"Any such act by the pastor can have serious repercussions against the administration in the US and against American troops in Afghanistan or Iraq."

In the western city of Ahmedabad, a group of around 20 demonstrators burned and trampled on US flags to protest against the planned burning.

The All-India Christian Council also condemned the intention of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida to burn the Koran on the anniversary of the Al-Qaeda terror network's attacks on the United States.

"Al-Qaeda does not represent the Islamic faith and this pastor certainly does not represent the teachings of Jesus Christ," the council's secretary general John Dayal said in a statement.

Muslims are a minority in India's 1.2-billion multi-faith population, which is dominated by Hindus and vulnerable to flare-ups in sectarian tension.

Ever anxious to smooth relations, Chidambaram's statement reflects government concern over a forthcoming court ruling on a domestic religious dispute.

On September 24, a court in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh will hand down a much-awaited ruling on an ownership dispute between Hindus and Muslims over the site of the Babri Mosque in the temple town of Ayodhya.

In 1992, the 16th-century mosque was razed by Hindu zealots, sparking riots in which 2,000 people died -- the worst inter-religious violence since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.

The local government has sought 35,000 extra paramilitary police for security duty as the state prepares to deal with any fallout after the court decides which religious group should have the site.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said the ruling will be one of the top political challenges for his country.

"The way the country handles this -- the aftermath -- will have a profound impact on the evolution of our country," he was quoted as saying on Tuesday in The Hindu newspaper after a meeting with editors.