Indian police raid bookshops, seize Maulana Maududi’s literature in IIOJK
Srinagar: In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, police seized hundreds of copies of books, including those written by world renowned Muslim scholar Syed Abul Ala Maududi during raids on dozens of bookshops across the territory.
According to Kashmir Media Service, police said searches were based on “credible intelligence regarding the clandestine sale and distribution of literature” promoting the Islamic ideology. The police did not name the author, but store owners said they had seized literature by the late Abul Ala Maududi, founder of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami.
Narendra Modi’s Hindutva government has banned the IIOJK branch of Jamaat-e-Islami in 2019.
Personnel of Indian secret agencies in plainclothes began raids on Saturday in Srinagar, before launching book seizures in other towns across the Muslim-majority territory. “The police came and took away all the copies of books authored by Abul Ala Maududi saying these books were banned,” a bookshop owner in Srinagar told a foreign media outlet.
Police said the searches were conducted “to prevent the circulation of banned literature linked to Jamaat-e-Islami.”
The raids sparked anger among Muslim majority as Syed Abul Ala Maududi is an internationally recognized Islamic scholar.
Senior APHC leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is also IIOJK’s chief cleric condemned the police action. “Cracking down on Islamic literature and seizing them from bookstores is ridiculous,” Farooq said in a statement.
“Policing thought by seizing books is absurd — to say the least — in the time of access to all information on virtual highways,” he added.
Critics and many residents of Kashmir say civil liberties were drastically curtailed after Modi’s government imposed direct rule in 2019 by scrapping Kashmir’s special status.
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