Re: Without the "death threats" Islam would collapse .

*** all organized religions! Greatest DIVIDERS of humankind! Then
again, they must be products of intelligent design. No?

Hey, ya know what? Maybe, maybe, "god" visited the Pakistan earthquake
disaster on people
who espouse evil acts against other human beings! Sam with the bombing
in India. How about Iran? Next?

Maybe both Hindus and Muslims need to rethink and reform their cruel,
ignorant - but laughable - religious-based beliefs and, for example,
stop the violence toward and mistreatment of WOMEN! Hell, even such a
ridiculous religion as christianity stopped killing "witches" many
decades ago ... I believe.

Maybe Hindu and Muslim men feel so weak, powerless, useless, and
lacking in self-worth that they feel compelled to resort to killing
their wives and daughters over foolish dowry issues!

Maybe these type of of "men" are really just frustrated girly-men,
cowards who can't function among fellow humans and gang up against
women - who are REALLY the stronger members of their sick societies!

Maybe Muslim and Hindu men need to
forget about 72 virgins in "heaven" and other baseless and silly fables
of their religions and start behaving - here on earth - with love and
compassion in their hearts!

Maybe then Hindu and Muslim societies can at last begin using the
brains and talents of their millions of downtrodden females, and
thereby upgrade their sad, male-dominated, religious-freaky
communities!


===============
"Indian Middle Class Grows, But Ugly Tradition Persists"

A young bride lived long enough to tell authorities that her husband
and in-laws had set her on fire for not meeting their dowry demands.

By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 30, 2005; A01


NEW DELHI -- Charanpreet Kaur, 19, had been married less than nine
months when her husband and his family decided it was time for her to
go. Trapping her in the bathroom, her husband clamped his hand over her
mouth while his father doused her with kerosene, according to a police
document.

The father then lit a match, setting his daughter-in-law on fire. She
died five days later.

India's endless dowry wars had claimed another victim.

Notwithstanding the gold jewelry, color television set and other finery
that served as the price of admission to her husband's middle-class
Sikh household, Charanpreet's new relations were not satisfied with the
bounty and kept demanding more, according to Charanpreet's relatives
and the statement she gave investigators before she died.

"Even before this incident my father-in-law used to put pressure on me
to get more money," said the statement by the young woman, who was
three months pregnant.

Unusual only because Charanpreet lived long enough to point a finger at
her alleged attackers, who claimed the fire was accidental, the case
underscores the deeply entrenched nature of dowry -- and its grim
corollary, the murder of young brides whose families fail to ante up --
even in the face of rising levels of income and education linked to
India's fast-growing economy.

In particular, the death of the young newlywed -- a shy, deeply
religious schoolteacher's daughter whose husband had a college degree
and worked in computer graphics -- shows that the age-old practice
endures even, and perhaps especially, among the educated urban
middle-class.

Despite laws barring dowry, and decades of protests and public
awareness campaigns, a nationwide survey of 10,000 households by the
All-India Democratic Women's Association in 2002 found that the
practice was no longer confined to the Hindu upper castes, where it
originated, but had spread across a broad range of classes and
communities, including Muslims and Christians.

One consequence is the growing dearth of baby girls in India, where
many middle-class parents, fearing the high costs of dowry, have taken
to aborting female fetuses identified through ultrasound examinations.
The skewed sex ratio is most pronounced in relatively prosperous areas
such as New Delhi, the capital, where the 2001 census found 868 girls
for every 1,000 boys under age six. The figure for India as a whole is
933 girls for every 1,000 boys.

"I think it's in a way very shocking that social relations are not
changing in a fast-growing economy," said Ranjana Kumari, the director
of the Center for Social Research in New Delhi. "All this
modernization, liberalization, globalization -- all this modern economy
-- and the people are not changing. The mindset is so rigid."

There are some signs of progress. For example, the number of reported
dowry killings has dipped slightly, from 6,851 in 2001 to 6,285 in
2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available. And two
years ago, Indian news media made a heroine out of Nisha Sharma, a
21-year-old computer student who summoned police to her wedding when
the groom's family escalated their dowry demands at the last minute.

Matrimonial ads placed by parents of prospective brides occasionally
come with the caveat, "Dowry seekers need not apply."

By all accounts, however, dowry-giving remains the norm in Indian
marriages. The union of Charanpreet Kaur and Sarabjeet Singh was no
exception.

Born in 1985, Charanpreet grew up in the New Delhi neighborhood of Guru
Nanak Nagar, a maze of narrow paved alleys with small brick row houses.
Pungent with cooking smells and motorbike exhaust, the largely
middle-class neighborhood is dominated by migrants from the fertile
agricultural region known as the Punjab. Like Charanpreet and her
family, most are Sikhs, a religious minority known for its strong work
ethic and egalitarian values. Typically, Sikh men use the name Singh
and women take the name Kaur.

Until last year, Charanpreet lived with her parents in a tiny,
well-scrubbed ground-floor apartment with a closet-size kitchen, a
refrigerator in the hall and pictures of Sikh gurus on the walls. She
shared a bedroom with her 14-year-old brother, Amandeep. Her father,
Satwant, 47, earns his living as a private tutor to primary school
students; her mother, Paramjit, 42, teaches at a government primary
school.

A quiet young woman with wide-set eyes and a diffident manner,
Charanpreet graduated from high school two years ago and had enrolled
in a college correspondence course with the aim of following her
parents into teaching, relatives and neighbors said. With few close
friends, she preferred to spend her free time at home, where she
immersed herself in Sikh prayer books and sometimes watched the
Discovery Channel and Cartoon Network on a small color television.

Then, early last year, neighbors provided Charanpreet's parents with
the name of an eligible bachelor. The son of a retired army subedar ,
or junior commissioned officer, Sarabjeet Singh had earned a degree
from Delhi University, brought home $227 in rupees a month designing
catalogs at a computer-graphics company and lived nearby with his
parents, brother and sister-in-law.

During a meeting with Sarabjeet's parents at the local gurdwara , or
Sikh temple, Charanpreet's parents were so impressed by the young man's
credentials and the family's evident piety that they agreed on the
marriage then and there, without setting eyes on their future
son-in-law. "They told us our little girl would live like a princess in
that house," recalled Paramjit Kaur, a compact, expressive woman in a
satiny blue tunic.

Bearded and handsome beneath his turban, Sarabjeet Singh had a
polished, self-confident manner, and he apparently made a good
impression when, several months later, he met his wife for the first
time, at a ceremony where the two exchanged rings. "She was actually
very happy to find a man who didn't eat meat or drink alcohol," her
mother recalled.

Last November, in a ceremony performed by a barefoot priest, the two
were married at the gurdwara, where Charanpreet's parents hosted a
lavish vegetarian feast for 250 guests. Bride and groom posed for
photographs with garlands of rupee banknotes encircling their necks.

The wedding cost the bride's family about $9,100 in rupees, according
to Charanpreet's parents. The largest share went for a dowry that
included the color television, bed linens, kitchenware, fine fabrics
for suits and saris and gold jewelry for the groom, his parents and
other relatives. "The rich give diamonds," explained Paramjit Kaur, who
said the family offered the dowry on its own initiative. "We're middle
class, so we give gold."

But things went quickly awry. A month after joining her husband and his
extended family in their cramped three story house, Charanpreet
approached her parents with a request from her husband for $2,280 in
rupees, saying he wanted the money to start his own business. Although
her family did not have the money, they borrowed it from relatives
because "we thought it would help our daughter in the long run," said
Paramjit Kaur. Not long afterward, the family was surprised to learn
that the groom's family had spent the money on a Maruti car, according
to Charanpreet's uncle, Pravinder Singh.

The demands apparently continued. During occasional visits home,
Charanpreet hinted that she was unhappy in her new home and sometimes
"would ask if there was any money to spare," her mother said.
Charanpreet's parents were unable to provide more financial help and
could only counsel patience. "We'd keep telling her to adjust because
we thought she was just a young bride and was going through teething
troubles," her mother said.

The truth was far worse than anything the family had imagined.

On the morning of Aug. 19, Charanpreet returned from the bathroom to
find her husband, his parents, his brother and his brother's wife
waiting for her in her third-floor bedroom, she said in her statement.
Her sister-in-law, Harvinder Kaur, forced her into the bathroom,
followed by Charanpreet's husband and father-in-law, who "started
pouring kerosene oil all over from a plastic bottle." Her husband then
left the room, leaving her father in law to strike a match and set her
on fire. "I ran downstairs with my body on fire," the statement said.

Burned so badly that her plastic bangles had melted into her wrist,
Charanpreet lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital by her
husband and father-in-law, who apparently believed she was close to
death and would not be able to incriminate them, the young woman's
relatives said. But Charanpreet regained consciousness a few hours
later and gave her statement to a magistrate; her in-laws were arrested
the same day.

"The gods she used to pray to came to her help," her mother said of her
daughter's ability to describe what had happened to her. "Even though
she was such a shy girl, she was able to give the police such a clear
and detailed statement. She found the strength then, and the last words
she gave to the magistrate were, 'These people should be punished.' "

Ombir Bishnoi, an assistant police commissioner, said all four suspects
had confessed to the killing. The family's lawyer, Baldev Raj, disputed
the validity of the confessions and described the fire as an accident,
without giving further details. The four are currently in New Delhi's
central jail awaiting formal murder charges.

Special correspondent Muneeza Naqvi contributed to this report


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