SALES SLUMP

New Delhi, Nov. 7: The Delhi blasts have had an unlikely victim — the headscarves made famous by Yasser Arafat that Muslim men would often be seen wearing for namaaz.

Since police took three suspects in the September 13 bombings to court with their faces covered by red-and-white check scarves, the demand for Arabi rumal has plummeted in north India.

Jamal Hussein, a wholesale dealer who supplies the scarves to markets across north India, said: “I used to get orders for around 10,000 during the Haj month. But since the Batla shootout, the number has really come down. This month, I have got orders for barely 500 scarves.”

Hussein blames this slump on the police’s choice of scarves for the suspects. “The police may have done it unwittingly. But the impact the incident has had on sales is very high. Ordinary Muslims are worried that wearing a similar scarf would make them prone to suspicion,” he said.

Delhi is the hub from where the scarves are sent across the country, with the wholesalers based in Meena Bazaar, Jamia Nagar, Sadar Bazaar, Nizamuddin and Jama Masjid.

Scarves of Saudi Arabian origin, priced at Rs 200 each, are the most expensive. The cheapest, priced at Rs 70, are made in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh. Chinese scarves are also in circulation, at Rs 100 to Rs 150 each.

Noor Mohammed, a retailer in the Old Fort area, agrees that the police action is to blame for the slide in sales.

“We were hoping sales would go up during the Haj season. But even that has not happened. I had sold around 1,000 scarves last year by this time. But this year, I have sold barely 100 scarves,” he said.

Buyers are showing a preference for scarves of other colours, he added.

Although several designs and colours, such as green, brown, orange and plain white have always been available, dealers say Indian Muslims preferred the checks that Palestinian leader Arafat had made popular.

The black-and-white check headscarves even bear his name and are called the Arafati.

In Saudi Arabia, where the headscarves, also known as kaffiyeh, are very common, white embroidered ones are popular. Palestinians stick to the Arafati.

In India, mostly middle-aged and elderly men would wear them for prayer, except during the Haj season when the youth would also line up to buy them.

After the shootout, which caused outrage in the Muslim community, which felt innocent youths had been branded terrorists, Azamgarh MP Akbar Ahmad Dumpy had turned up in Parliament wearing a check scarf to mark his protest.

Following this, the Delhi government ordered that only white scarves should be used to cover the faces of suspects when required.