to defend Iraq’s holy shrines and, if need be, fight Sunni Islamist
militants in the country where the civilian death toll from the Sunni
insurgents’ advance is estimated at least 1,300.
Denouncing the militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL) as terrorists, these Indian Muslims have filled out forms,
complete with passport-size photographs and photocopied identification
documents, to travel to Iraq.
Leaders of Anjuman E. Haideri, the religious organisation
spearheading the effort, said they might march to the Iraqi embassy in
New Delhi on Friday to deliver the forms.
A Shia cleric is leading the effort and the volunteers want to
protect shrines venerated by the sect in Iraq, but the group’s leaders
say their cause is not sectarian.
Already at the group’s headquarters located off Karbala Road in a
leafy New Delhi neighbourhood, picket signs of “It’s not Shias vs Sunnis
(it’s) Iraqis vs Terrorists” have been prepared.
“They aren’t Muslims. Jihad means to defend. Jihad doesn’t mean to
kill,” said Syed Bilal Hussain Abidi, a senior member of the group as he
showed graphic footage on his cellphone of beheadings and bombs
exploding in Iraq.
“We could travel to Iraq to form a human chain to save people from
being tortured. We could fetch water and donate blood and do anything to
save our shrines,” he said, surrounded by brightly coloured files
stacked with volunteers’ forms.
Even though Muslims are a minority accounting for only 15 percent of
Indians, they still number about 175 million, making them the
third-largest Muslim population in the world.
Whether the volunteers will be granted visas and allowed to travel to
Iraq is not clear. Officials at the Iraqi embassy were not immediately
available to comment.
India’s foreign ministry has said it will not allow Indians to go to
Iraq because of the security situation in a country where 40 Indian
hostages are being held in an undisclosed location and 46 Indian nurses
are stranded in Tikrit hospitals.
But Syed Bahadur Abbas Naqvi, the group’s general secretary, said
that since the Indian government does not plan to send forces to Iraq,
the supporters have little choice but to head over there themselves.
So far, the volunteers, who range from engineers to students and
police officers, have signed a form that says: “I firmly believe that
terrorism of all kinds including the one which is being inflicted by
known terror groups in Iraq is not only a serious threat to innocent
Iraqis (irrespective of their religious beliefs) but is also a threat to
the entire humanity.”
The group said it has 100,000 signatories from across India and has
held several demonstrations “against terrorism” in Delhi and other
cities.
The group wants to defend shrines spread across Iraq in the cities of
Karbala, Najaf, Samarra and Kirkuk, but also stem the rise of crude oil
prices that have shot up as a result of the crisis and could hit
importer India hard.
“If they need help, we’re ready from Hindustan,” said Dilawar Abbas, a
group member, using another name for India. If the ISIL is in Iraq
right now, “tomorrow they can be in India.”