SRINAGAR — Shaheena, an undergraduate school student, loves to wear her hijab but, like the majority of Kashmiri girls, she refuses attempts by militants to force hijab at gunpoint.

“One who is born a Muslim knows how to live as a Muslim,” Shaheena told IslamOnline.net.

“There is no need of enforcement which creates fear.”

Militants in Muslim-majority Kashmir have issued an ultimatum to schools and colleges across the Valley to implement a strict Islamic dress code for girls, or face the consequences.

They had abducted Mohammad Ashraf Peer, a prominent Muslim scholar and principal of the Government Degree College in Sopore town.

“My car was set ablaze,” Peer, who was later released, told IOL.

He was beaten up and threatened with serious consequences if he doesn’t enforce the Islamic dress code to the 3,000 students in his college, one of the biggest in the valley.

“They told me to enforce the Islamic dress code in the college and convey the same [threat] to other institutions.”

But students in educational institutions across Kashmir are braving the militant intimidation, especially that a sweeping majority of them already wear proper Muslim clothes.

Students in Peer’s college have also boycotted classes in protest.

“The kidnapping of our principal and then threatening him to enforce the Islamic code in the college is categorically dictatorship which we don’t like,” says Shaheena.

Another student in the final year insists that Kashmiri Muslim girls understand that women’s beauty lies in covering up.

“Why should they threaten us for the things we already know?”

Not by Force

Many Kashmiris do acknowledge that the Western culture, which has been flourishing recently in their predominantly-Muslim Himalayan region, has swayed some.

“The recent years have witnessed Western culture in valley,” Fehmeeda, another student, says.

Some of the students are dressing themselves with the latest fashions either due to the cultural shock or because they feel it is the need of the hour.

But Fehmeeda insists that the way to battle the Western influence in their Muslim society should never be through threats and intimidation.

“It needs to be countered but not by force.”

Shazada, a house wife from downtown Srinagar, said that Kashmir was always known for its inherited Muslim culture.

While she laments the existence of un-Islamic dress code among some, she asserts that most of the Muslim girls and women dress modestly.

Mohd Akram, of south Kashmir, cautions that the militants’ way can create controversies.

“We don’t acknowledge such threats as all of us are well versed with the Islamic laws and teachings.”

Citing history, Shaheena, the college student, believes any attempt to enforce a moral policing at gunpoint will utterly fail.

In the early 90s, women were warned to observe the Islamic dress code, but most Kashmiri women defied the threats.

“History is witness that nothing can be forced on people.”

By IslamOnline.net