By IANS
Srinagar : The Jamiatul Mujahideen (JUM), a guerrilla group in Kashmir, has called for a strike Friday against the knighthood awarded to celebrated India born author Salman Rushdie.
"The strike is against the British government and Queen Elizabeth for declaring Salman Rushdie as a knight," the JUM said in a statement issued here Tuesday.
"The people of Kashmir will rise in one voice and condemn this shameful decision of the British Queen by observing a complete shutdown on Friday," it added.
The statement said Rushdie had committed blasphemy against Islam and its Prophet in his 1980's book "Satanic Verses", which had sparked angry protests in several Muslim countries.
"By choosing her birthday to confer knighthood on Rushdie, the Queen has ridiculed and challenged the sentiments of Muslims across the World," the group stated.
Rushdie was forced to go into hiding for years after the spiritual leader of Iran's Islamic revolution Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death sentence against the author for blasphemy in a fatwa (decree) in 1989.
Iran's former President Mohammad Khatami, who said the country had no intention of carrying out the sentence, put the fatwa aside in 2001.