Suhail Dar
Thousands of devotees from all over south Kashmir attended the annual Milad procession in south Kashmir’s Anantnag town to mark the anniversary of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
Amid elaborate arrangements made by the district admin, the marchers reciting the Quran and Naats (poetry in praise of Prophet ﷺ) began marching from Jamia Masjid Anantnag at around 9:30 PM and after foot marching the entire town, reached the Khanqah of Hazrat Baba Hyder Reshi, a prominent Sufi saint, where the rally concluded.
Eyewitnesses told The Kashmiriyat that residents had arranged refreshments for the devotees who participate in one of the largest Eid Milad gatherings in the valley.
At Hazrat Baba Hyder Reshi, the scholars who led the rally addressed the gathering where they paid rich tributes to the Prophet and said his way was the only way to end the miseries Kashmiris have been undergoing for the past few years.
They said that the Prophet is a perfect role model for our youth. “Our youth are getting involved in drug addiction and peddling and the problem seems to have no end,” Gulzar Ahmed Madani said.
Everyday we are faced with one case or the other, many of the cases do not even come into the limelight. “Recently during a Bhang destruction campaign launched by Idara Tehqiqat e islami, we saw boys as young as 13 consuming drugs. Such is the state of our society that these drug peddlers are respected in the society for the money they have. We just need to counsel the drug addicts, but the peddlers need to be boycotted socially. It is not any individual’s fight, but a collective fight of the society,” Gulzar Ahmed Madani said.
He said that it is time for clerics to gear up for the fight and make the anti-drug word a part of their Friday sermons. “But we have to do a little beyond mosques and act as counsellors to our younger generation. Parents have an important role, so does social media. Rather than bringing eachother down, we can use the power of social media to help the youth understand the ills of drugs,” he said.
Gulzar Madani also called for a release of Maulana Abdul Rashid Dawoodi, Mushtaq Veeray and others.