Muslims begin Ramadan fast in Asia; holy month marred by bombings in Thailand’s

[TruthSpreader]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/muslims-begin-ramadan-fast-in-asia-holy-month-marred-by-bombings-in-thailands-south/2012/07/20/gJQAn0K5yW_story.html


By Associated Press, Published: July 20 | Updated: Saturday, July 21, 12:02 AM

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Muslims have begun fasting for the start of the Ramadan holy month in Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere around Asia, but the somber occasion was marred in Buddhist-dominated Thailand by two bomb blasts that killed one person and injured seven.

The Muhammadiyah group, Indonesia’s second-largest Muslim organization, told its 30 million followers that Ramadan starts Friday. The government, however, declared the official start as Saturday, when most of the remaining 190 million Indonesians began the dawn-to-dusk fast.

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Muslims in Thailand also began Ramadan on Friday, while Malaysians began Saturday. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were to start Saturday or Sunday.

The Muslim holy month devoted to dawn-to-dusk fasting, prayers and good deeds culminates with the three-day holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

Muslims believe God revealed the first verses of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad during Ramadan, which starts with the sighting of the new moon. The Muslim lunar calendar moves back through the seasons, so Ramadan starts 11 days earlier each year under the Western calendar.

The holy month started ominously in southern Thailand, the region where most Thai Muslims live and where an insurgency has claimed thousands of lives. The car bombing started fires at shops and residences and sent black smoke wafting from a row of four-story buildings in a commercial area of Sungai Kolok in Narathiwat province.

Seven people were injured, including four who were briefly trapped on the roof of a burning building, said police Col. Maitree Chimcherd. He said Muslim insurgents hid the homemade bomb in a pickup truck parked in front of a computer store.

On Thursday night, a roadside bomb killed a villager and wounded his companion while they were hunting for squirrels in the woods in Yala province, said police Col. Wichai Jaengsakul.

Still, residents of Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani provinces flocked to local markets Friday to shop for fresh and dried fruit including date palm to be consumed at dusk after the first day of fasting ends.

In Malaysia, where nearly two-thirds of the population is Muslim, people began observing the holy month by heading to mosques Friday night on the eve of Ramadan’s start, with special Quran-reading and prayer sessions to proceed nightly throughout the month.

The start of Ramadan is often quiet in Malaysia, with excitement peaking in the final week, when people buy new clothes, food and other supplies to celebrate the end of the holy month.

Many hotels in Kuala Lumpur have begun advertising promotional dinners featuring roast lamb, savory curries and sumptuous cakes for more affluent Muslims to break their fast, while in numerous neighborhoods, entrepreneurs will set up evening stalls for customers to purchase cooked rice, meat and vegetables to bring home for their families.

Homemaker Karina Hassan said this Ramadan might be significant for her family because her 8-year-old daughter could try fasting for the first time. “She might try to fast for half a day at first,” Karina said. “She’s always hungry 24 hours a day, so fasting could be tough for her.”

[✡ Hindu Zionist ॐ]

GUWAHATI: Police shot dead four rioters in Assam on Tuesday as security forces struggled to contain ethnic fighting that has killed 26 people and left remote hamlets in flames, forcing tens of thousands from their homes.

Rioting between Bodo tribespeople and Muslim settlers has raged for days. Some of the victims died of machete wounds, aid workers who has seen the bodies said.

Police opened fire on a mob that was burning property in the Bodo-dominated Kokrajhar district, killing the four, police inspector general S.N. Singh told Reuters.

Earlier, hundreds of men armed with spears, clubs and rocks attacked an express train passing through Kokrajhar, injuring several passengers. In another incident, several people suffered bullet wounds and others were injured in a stampede when police fired to disperse a gang of 400, a senior police official said.

Soldiers and federal paramilitary troops patrolled Kokrajhar town and outlying areas on armoured vehicles mounted with machine guns. The government said more security reinforcements were travelling to the region.

In defiance of an overnight curfew, rival mobs spread to rural areas and neighbouring districts overnight, targeting hamlets along river banks and in the jungle. Some 500 villages have been destroyed by arson.

"The security forces were silent spectators when village after village was burnt down," veteran local politician Urkhao Gwra Brahma told Reuters.

Ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, India's northeast is home to more than 200 ethnic and tribal groups and has been racked by separatist revolts since India's independence from Britain in 1947.

In recent years Hindu and Christian tribes have vented strong anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment against Bangladeshi settlers. The Bodo tribe has clashed with Bengalis in deadly riots several times since the 1950s.

The latest violence was sparked on Friday night when unidentified men killed four youths in Kokrajhar district, police and district officials said. In retaliation, armed Bodos attacked Muslims, suspecting them of being behind the killings.

Hagrama Mohilary, the leader of the tribal council governing the region, warned that former separatist rebels had joined the violence to protect Bodo villages. He called for the rebels, who are officially observing a ceasefire, to lay down their arms.

Bodo tribes shot at Muslim villages close to the border with Bhutan on Monday night, a senior police officer who asked not to be named told Reuters. He said no casualties had been reported.

Assam's chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, told TV network CNN-IBN that he hoped the situation would be under control within two days. He said some 30,000 villagers have fled their homes and taken shelter in relief camps, but local officials said the numbers were at least twice that.

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) criticised Gogoi for not stopping the rioting and Prime Minister Manomhan Singh called the chief minister asking him to do everything possible to stop the violence. The Hindu nationalist BJP has in the past been accused of fanning religious conflicts.

Tribal leader Mohilary said relief camps were overcrowded and suffering a shortage of food and medicine because roadblocks across the region had stopped supply trucks.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Assam-riots-Hundreds-of-villages-burned-toll-rises-to-26/articleshow/15123352.cms

[syyuge]

As ramdan is has not started in any good manner.

[TruthSpreader]

First India, then Thailand, where will Islamic terrorists strike next?

[✡ Hindu Zionist ॐ]

Woman found, after getting raped by Muslim mobs in Assam, India

[syyuge]

That is all the pakistani muslamics do in ramadgyan.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Guwahati/Assam-violence-rages-32-dead/Article1-895015.aspx

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Assam-violence-Army-deploys-13000-troops-train-services-remain-stalled/articleshow/15139362.cms?

[The Noachide]

Woman found, after getting raped by Muslim mobs in Assam, India

One of the most disturbing pictures I have seen done by these muslims in their holy month. Smh

[Rubystars]

I feel really sad for that woman. Does anyone know if she survived?