Did IS 'threaten' Sri Sri for his appeals on Yazidis?

Did the threats reportedly given by the Islamic State (IS) to Hindu spiritual leader, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, have anything to do with his recent humanitarian efforts to help Yazidis, the Kurdish religious community in Iraq which has been targeted by the militant group?

Ravi Shankar’s aides at his Art of Living (AoL) here wonder if this is so. Ravi Shankar  was in Kurdistan’s capital Erbil late last year to oversee assistance his organisation—the International Assistance for Human Values (IAHV)—had managed for Yazidis who had fled to nearby mountains out of fear of IS persecution.

Sources in the AoL maintained that Ravi Shankar had earlier appealed to the IS not to attack the Yazidis, as part of his global peace initiative which he has been taking in Iraq for years now. The IAHV, with the help of donors spread across the globe, including in the US, had managed to get tonnes of food for the displaced Yazidis.

AoL functionaries suspect that the IS may have misconstrued Ravi Shankar’s humanitarian approach towards Yazidis as an “encroachment” into their territory. Hence, to scare him so that he stays from the conflict zone, the IS might have issued the threat letters, they suggested.

According to AoL volunteers in Bengaluru, three threat letters were received in all: one by Gavin Weighthead, the general manager at Hotel Jen in Penang, Malaysia; second by Ambika Menon, the director for Art of Living and the International Association for Human Values, Malaysia, and the third by Ee Mei, a senior faculty member at AoL. Copies of the threat letters accessed by Deccan Herald here showed beheading of an unknown man and warned Ravi Shankar against stepping into Muslim countries, including Malaysia.

The spiritual guru’s organisation has requested Malaysian authorities and the Indian embassy in Kuala Lumpur to investigate the letters, and they are taking them seriously.

The AoL conducted a yoga programme for over 10,000 people in Penang on Saturday morning. In the evening, Ravi had Shankar addressed a gathering of about 70,000 people at the Batu Kawan Stadium in Penang.