Couples celebrate Valentine's Day, radicals play spoilsport

Radical groups played spoilsport in Valentine's Day celebrations today in some parts of the country, from throwing rotten tomatoes at couples to chasing them away from parks, but it did not deter Cupid-struck people from marking the day dedicated to love with enthusiasm.
Red, the symbolic colour of love, was the theme at many restaurants and food joints, and youngsters thronged parks and gardens to celebrate the moments with their special ones.
In Delhi, rains and overcast skies provided a perfect backdrop for the young and old to display their affection for their loved ones.
Braving rainy and chilly weather, over 5000 people, mostly young couples visited the Garden of Five Senses here at a floral festival that was inaugurated today, coinciding with the day marked for love in the calendar.

Heart-shaped flowers and red and pink balloons could be seen festooned at coffee houses and themed restaurants while While hi-end eateries claimed they were chock-a-block with lunch and dinner reservations.
And, while the national capital saw the day passing off peacefully, celebrations in other parts of the country were marred by disruptive activities from radical groups.

In Ahmedabad, Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activists threw rotten tomatoes at couples celebrating the occasion on the banks of Sabarmati river there, calling Valentine's Day as an "obscene celebration".
Hundreds of couples were present at the Sabarmati riverfront this morning to celebrate Valentine's Day.

"There is nothing wrong in imbibing positive aspects of western culture, but VHP and Bajrang Dal are against obscenity in the name of westernisation. Valentine's Day is one such obscene celebration," Bajrang Dal city president Jwalit Mehta said.
In Srinagar, radical women's outfit Dukhtaran-e-Milat Chief Asiya Andrabi and her three colleagues were detained by police here while carrying out an anti-Valentine's day drive.
In industrial city Jamshedpur, a group of persons chased away lovers assembled at the famous Jubilee Park there and made a bonfire of Valentine's Day greeting cards before being rounded up by the police.
The protests took a rather bizarre turn when a few workers of Hindu Munnani performed the marriage of a goat with a dog in Ooty.

Describing the Valentine's Day celebrations as amounting to denigrating the culture and blindly following the customs of the West, the workers made both the goat and dog exchange garlands in front of a temple here.
Marking the day in Kolkata, around 70 women from red-light areas of Sonagachi and Munshiganj took out a procession on a two-kilometre stretch in Khidirpore as part of the global One Billion Rising campaign to end violence against women and promote gender equality.