On December 24, Aneeka Khalid, Farah Deeba and Noma Nazir, all Class 10 students, performed in a music show Battle of Bands at the indoor stadium in Srinagar. However, the band – Pragaash (towards light)— had to quit the band after the grand mufti, Mufti Bashi-u-Din issued a fatwa asking them to desist from playing music. Besides, there were adverse comments on Facebook and the band felt it was ‘threatening’.

This created an uproar forcing the police to register a case under Section 66-A of IT Act and Section 506 RPC (criminal intimidation) in the Rajbagh police station in Srinagar against alleged online abusers who issued threats to the girls on the Facebook page.

Even though Jammu and Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah came out in strong support of Pragaash and offered security to the girls if they wished to pursue their music career, the troubled families of band members have reportedly gone into hiding. The family of one of the band members said the girls never wanted to pursue music as a full-time career. The People’s Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti described the whole issue as “avoidable, unnecessary controversy”.