(12)
MUMBAI–The city's top Muslim clerics vowed yesterday to block the burial of nine Islamist militants involved in a three-day rampage last week that killed at least 173 people, saying their acts were an affront to Islam.
"Such demons – they will not find an inch of land in any Muslim cemetery," said Maulana Sayed Moinuddin Ahsraf, secretary of the All-India Sunni Jamiat-ulema.
He spoke after a meeting yesterday of Muslim clerics and leaders from the Indian state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital.
In past attacks by Islamists in India, dead attackers have been buried. The ordinary practice is for Muslim burials to be conducted quickly, within a few hours of death.
"Just because you call yourself Musa, Azim or Rehman, you don't become a Muslim. These people who carried out such attacks cannot be," said Syed Noori, another Muslim leader who attended the meeting.
Ten Islamist militants armed with AK-47s and grenades let loose on two of Mumbai's best-known luxury hotels and other landmarks across the city of 18 million during a 60-hour frenzy that ended when commandos killed the ninth gunmen.
A 10th was arrested after a mob set upon him.
India's minority Muslims, forming about 13 per cent of the 1.1 billion population, have felt under siege every time Islamist militants launched an attack in the country.
"We have even written to the government conveying our decision. Our Muslim brothers across the country are unanimous about it," Noori said.
Asked what could be done with the bodies, he said: "That's the government's headache."
