A while back Manish had a post featuring a multimedia exhibit titled “DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA.”

Since 9/11, thousands of American Muslims were detained in a security dragnet. To date, none have been prosecuted on terrorism charges. The majority of those detained were from the invisible underclass of cities like New York. They are the recent immigrants who drive our taxis, deliver our food, clean our restaurant tables, and sell fruit, coffee, and newspapers. The only time we see their faces are when we glance at the hack license in the taxi partition, or the ID card around the neck of a vendor.

SM Tipster “Joykee” sends us this article hot off the NYTimes press:

For years, the father said, he watched as his daughter, now 16, became more and more drawn to the family’s Muslim religion. At 14, she began wearing a full-length veil and teaching religion classes at mosques around the city.

A year ago, she withdrew from her Manhattan high school because, a school official said, she felt uncomfortable with typical teenage banter. She told her family she wanted to go to an Islamic all-girls school, and when they could not afford to send her, she chose to study at home.

The father, a Bangladeshi watch salesman who describes himself as far more devoted to American education than to prayer after 13 years as an immigrant illegally in the United States, said he pushed for his daughter to return to public school.

Then last fall, the daughter he also describes as loving Bollywood soap operas and shopping with girlfriends startled him and her mother by seeking their approval to marry a young American Muslim man they had never met and whom she barely knew. The father refused the marriage overtures, which were made by the young man’s father in a call from Michigan.

A few months later, when the teenager stayed out overnight for the first time, the father, fearing an elopement, went to the police for help.

It is a decision he regrets deeply. His daughter and another 16-year-old girl are now described by the government as would-be suicide bombers and are being held in a detention center for illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania. He is sure that his visit to the police set off the F.B.I. investigation that led to a chilling assertion, in a government document, that the girls are “an imminent threat to the security of the United States based on evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers.” Family and friends call that absurd.

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The Bus that will regularly (I hope) make the trip between the Indian an Pakistani controlled parts of Kashmir got its roll on Thursday, despite the brave passengers being attacked by terrorists in their guest house on Wednesday. The Independent reports:

Passengers on a historic bus trip between the Pakistani and Indian portions of Kashmir crossed a bridge spanning the de facto border on Thursday, the halfway point on a voyage both sides hope will lead to lasting peace on the subcontinent.

Family members kept apart during more than a half-century of bloodshed waited anxiously to receive their loved ones, while Indian officials offered the visitors from the Pakistani Kashmiri capital of Muzaffarabad marigold garlands and bouquets of flowers. One passenger waved a victory sign.

Two buses from Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir, were expected to arrive later at the heavily militarized Line of Control, where a 220-foot long bridge closed since the 1940s connects a winding and rutted road through the Himalayas.

The bus service started a day after an attack in Srinagar by suspected Islamic militants on a guesthouse where passengers were staying. Six people were injured but the passengers escaped unharmed. Both sides vowed not to let militants disrupt the occasion.

I must say that I really admire the courage of those passengers. You’d find it difficult to get me onto a bus moving through ambush-able territory knowing that every militant for hundreds of miles around would be gunning for me. I know security was tight, but still. In a way, the “elderly” passengers riding this bus reminded me of Rosa Parks daring the MAN to do his worst. ABC News reports:

Nineteen Indian Kashmiris, mostly elderly, defied separatist threats and crossed the metal bridge — painted neutral white for the occasion — hours after 31 Pakistanis walked into India to reunite divided families. “I can’t control my emotion. I am setting foot in my motherland,” said a tearful Shahid Bahar, a lawyer from the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Muzaffarabad. “I am coming here for the first time to meet my blood relations,” said Bahar, whose father crossed over in 1949. “It was my dream. It is unbelievable. Everyone is here.” On both sides, they were hugged and kissed by relatives they had not held for decades, or in some cases, ever. “It’s for the first time that I have seen my uncle,” sobbed Noreen Arif, an adviser to Pakistani Kashmir’s prime minister, hugging him tearfully as he stepped off the bridge.

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Nirali Magazine gives us another reason to love them ever so much: This month’s issue includes a full-fledged feature about “Numb3rs” actress Navi Rawat, complete with a dizzying array of photos —

With her impressive resume of film and television roles and a number of upcoming projects in the works, Navi Rawat certainly lives up to the “One To Watch” moniker. Whether as a literature scholar, dramatic actress, kick-ass heroine, sensitive girl, multi-ethnic woman or the down-to-earth girl next door, she reveals a number of different faces, each with its own particular power and grace. And that very versatility and talent ensures that hers will soon be a familiar face you won’t forget. [Nirali Magazine]

Other notable articles:

• Finding a Modern Male — Roxanna Kassam lists five things to look for when trying to bag a “thoroughly modern South Asian male” South Asian metrosexual.
• The Wedding Planner — Sonia Kaur’s IndianWeddingSite.com takes the pain out of planning the day of reckoning. Her site is great, but desperately needs a section on shotgun Indian weddings. Depending on the e.p.t® results, it could soon come in very handy around here.
• A Traditional Beauty — Shobha Tummala successfully brings threading, a traditional Indian method of hair removal, to salons in New York City. Couldn’t hurt to give it a try. At the very least, it has got be safer than the Mach3 we’re currently using to shear our scrotum.

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