Srinagar: Amid tight security, the Shia community in Kashmir on Monday took out a Muharram procession on the traditional Guru Bazar-Dalgate route here to mark the eighth day of mourning the death of Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) grandson.
Some mourners carried Palestinian flags and called for an end to violence against people in Palestine, officials said.
The procession began at Guru Bazar locality in the city and passed through Jehangir Chowk and Maulana Azad Road before culminating at Dalgate.
Thousands of mourners assembled at Guru Bazar at 5.30 am as the authorities had granted a limited time window for the procession so that normal life would not be affected.
The traffic department issued an advisory for people residing on the route of the Muharram procession, the officials said.
The Srinagar Municipal Corporation made arrangements for cleaning the roads and volunteers were seen offering water to the people taking part in the procession.
The Divisional Commissioner (Div COM) Kashmir Vjay Kumar Bidhuri, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kashmir zone V.K Birdi, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Dr Bilal Mohi-ud-Din Bhat, and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Srinagar Ashish Mishra, all of whom had black bands on their arms, also joined the mourners for a brief while as a mark of respect for the martyrs of Karbala.
This is the second consecutive year that the authorities here have allowed the Muharram procession to be taken out on the traditional route.
Two major processions, including the one’s taken out on 8th and 10th Muharram, were banned after militancy erupted in Kashmir as authorities were apprehensive that separatists might misuse the large gathering for ulterior motives.
Dragging their bare feet through the scorching heat, the mourners, donned in black dresses as a sign of bereavement, were reciting ‘Nawha’ (eulogy) commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussain (AS) and his family and allies in the Battle of Karbala.
Similar processions were taken out at few interior pockets of the city, with hundreds of mourners draped in black dresses, wailing and beating their chests all the way to commemorate supreme sacrifices by the Prophet’s (PBUH) descendents.
At many places the members of Sunni community had also set up mobile kiosks alongside the roads, offering water and juices to the mourners to honor the martyrs of Karbala.
Poses of police and paramilitary forces were deployed on roads to ensure the peaceful culmination of the processions.
