Srinagar:\u00a0<\/b>The exiled Buddhist spiritual leader Dalai Lama, who is currently on a three-day visit to Zanskar area of Kargil district Wednesday called for religious harmony in the region but \u2018preferred silence over social boycott against Muslims,\u2019 locals said.<\/p>\n
Zanskar region has witnessed tension between the Muslim and Buddhist communities since 2012 after 22 \u2018low caste\u2019 Buddhist members converted to Islam in Padam area of the region, angering Lamas.<\/p>\n
In September 2012, the tension snowballed into a communal clash which left dozens of people injured. Many of the wounded from Muslim community were shifted to SKIMS Soura in Srinagar for emergency treatment.<\/p>\n
This year also, a clash took place on May 9 in which a Muslim youth was injured after being thrashed by a \u2018Buddhist mob.\u2019<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Dalai Lamai addressed a gathering of Muslim community at Model Public School, Padam. While stressing on religious harmony, he called on both the communities to \u201clive in peace\u201d and \u201cavoid clashing\u201d with each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe called for brotherhood and said all religions teach peace and brotherhood,\u201d Fayaz Wani, the president of Muslim Association, told GNS over phone.<\/p>\n
The Dalai Lama was invited by local Muslim groups to the region, a resident said.<\/p>\n
Fayaz said they also presented a memorandum to the spiritual leader in which they mentioned the \u2018hardships faced by Muslim community since 2012 at the hands of Buddhist community in the region.\u2019<\/p>\n
The locals, however, expressed displeasure over Dalai Lama\u2019s silence over \u2018social boycott\u2019 against Muslims.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did not utter a single word over it. Though we were expecting that he would also speak over it,\u201d Fayaz said, adding, \u201cIn memorandum, we had also mentioned the issue of social boycott against us.\u2019<\/p>\n
Muhammad Shafi, a local government teacher, said, \u201cThe leader was silent over social boycott against Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Srinagar:\u00a0The exiled Buddhist spiritual leader Dalai Lama, who is currently on a three-day visit to Zanskar area of Kargil district Wednesday called for religious harmony in the region but \u2018preferred silence over social boycott against Muslims,\u2019 locals said. Zanskar region has witnessed tension between the Muslim and Buddhist communities since 2012 after 22 \u2018low caste\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}