`Give jobs to end stone pelting'

Echoing Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's apprehensions, Grand Mufti Mufti Basheeruddin here on Wednesday said stone throwers in old Srinagar and other towns were being paid for exhibiting their ire.
Addressing a press conference after meeting Home Minister P.
Chidambaram, the Mufti asked the government to `nip the evil in the bud' by providing jobs to these youth.
He said the stone pelting had taken a form of alternative employment and the government needed to attend to this problem. He said the Home Minister assured him that 5000 jobs would be created in Kashmir during 2010.
"They (stone throwers) are paid for what they are doing. What do you do about that? Give Kashmiri youth jobs so that they don't look for unlawful ways of earning," he said.

Mufti, who is here for past few days, however, could not get an appointment with Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. After repeated tries, he was told to meet Prithviraj Chuhan, Congress party's incharge of Jammu and Kashmir and Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

There was a drama ahead of Grand Mufti's press conference. At the last minute authorites

at Jammu and Kashmir Guest House at Chankyapuri cancelled his booking for the hall and arrangements for hightea for journalists. They told him they have got a message to cancel this booking as it was a political press conference.
He, later addressed the press in his own room. Much drama followed as many newsmen had arrived believing it to be a press confenrece of former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. Even at the end of press conference, they were enquiring about the Grand Mufti and looking for the PDP patron.
Terming stone pelting as a form of protest un-Islamic, the Grand Mufti said such violent practices were against the basic tenets of the religion whose essence is `peace and brotherhood'.

"Islam strongly prohibits any means of violence. The stone pelting practice is surely un-Islamic. It causes inconvenience to people and propels more violence," the Grand Mufti said.

Asked if he had issued a fatwa against stone pelting, which some separatists justify as a form of resistance, the Mufti said: "What I am saying is not my personal opinion.
I, as a Grand Mufti, am making it clear. When Islam doesn't advocate or justify any violence, how can you justify stone pelting? I am saying this in the light of Hadith (sayings of the Prophet) and the holy Quran."

"Islam is the religion of peace and brotherhood," he added, strongly condemning the practice which over the past two years has become a norm in the troubled state, especially on Fridays.