Wedding under scanner..............

Wedding under scanner: Army detains, searches marriage party in Kashmir

 

 The conflict in Jammu and Kashmir between security forces and militants cast a shadow over an occasion of celebration recently, when a marriage party was detained and repeatedly searched by the army, the Indian Express reported on Thursday.The report quotes an army officer as saying that the search was conducted after the security forces received an input saying that three terrorists were attempting to cross over to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). According to the report, the bride was made to step out of her doli (bridal carriage) three times for searches. There were said to be 110 people in the marriage party.Later, the Commanding Officers of the two regiments which conducted the searches apologized for the incident.Marriage ceremonies have been subjects of suspicion of security forces earlier as well.An article in Greater Kashmir from October 2006 quoted people from a village in north Kashmir that they have been asked to get clearance from the army for marriages. According to the article, apart from the grooms profile in a written statement, families were also asked questions on the number of guests, the amount of money to be spent and even the number of varieties of meat being cooked.An Amnesty international report has detailed an incident from the year 1990, when Border Security Force (BSF) personnel allegedly opened fire at a wedding party in Badagam in Kashmir, killing the bridegrooms brother and wounding nine others. Both the bride and the bridegroom were said to be among those injured. According to the report, the Superintendent of Police of the Anantnag district had also admitted that BSF personnel had gangraped two women from the marriage party. Indian officials were said to have earlier claimed that the bus had been accidentally caught in cross-fire.