Rock On Girls! Kashmir's first and only all-girl rock band faces threats from Ring-wing extremists

February 3 2013

Pragaash,the chick band from Kashmir is facing serious threats ever since they first performed in Srinagar two months ago when they were forced to quit live performance. Ever since that day,lives of these young talented girls have been made hell. They have received some very serious backlash from right-wing extremists, from very abusive and offensive comments on social media to straight up rape threats. Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah has promised action and has taken a stern view of the matter. He termed the incident as extremely shameful.

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Shame on those who claim freedom of speech via social media & then use that freedom to threaten girls who have the right to choose to sing.
— Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) February 2, 2013

I hope these talented young girls will not let a handful of morons silence them #Pragaash
— Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) February 2, 2013

The attacks have disturbed the girls and have managed to ruin their morale to some extent as they are avoiding public performances for now. Although they have decided to continue to focus on producing.

Raheel Khurshid, Director (Communication) India, of online campaign portal Change.org, says: "This is a classic case of vicious online abuse in which people think they can get away with anything. The problem is most of these things said on the Internet have ramifications in the real world."

Pragaash have also received much support from everywhere. Messages of support started rolling in as soon as the story went viral on Twitter.

Pragaash- From Darkness to light has three members- Noma Bhatt, Farah Deeba and Aneeqa Khalid. The band was founded in January 2012. The band has its own Facebook page.

We here at All Eyes On God think very highly of freedom of thought and free speech. We think that those kick-ass chicks should be left alone. If right-wing extremists consider singing a bad thing they can move on to better things in their lives. Authorities in India and Kashmir should make absolutely sure that they are protected and that the hatemongers are tackled.

Meanwhile,some people have resolved to India bashing,apparently because of all the recent rape cases in India. Many Pakistanis started trending #GetLostIndia which probably also had some connection with the Pragaash case,where the band is also being threatened of rape. But rape and misogyny exists everywhere. It's a plague of our collective society.

In case there is anyone out there who thinks that rape and misogyny only exists in India,we are here to give you a quick reality check. We recently posted an article about Haredi Ultra-Orthodox Jews,who don't take kindly on women who sing. Also, Islamists in Mali completely silenced music there. Many other cases. So we can safely say that religious right-wing extremists everywhere consider music the Anti-Christ,however we are still trying to convince ourselves that such lunacy ended back in Middle Ages. But hey,we can be totally wrong,right?

Oh and speaking of Islamists in Mali and Pakistanis criticising India, there are some strong reports about the presence of Pakistani Jihadis in Mali.

There,we gave Pakistanis something to think about.

As for Pragaash,we seriously think they are pretty awesome. Rock on girls!