JAMMU, Aug 3: Religious leaders in occupied Kashmir have forbidden Muslims from listening to a hot-selling pop cassette by Pakistani singers who likened divine power to a pen.

At least two scholars in the south of the held state have issued orders against listening to the cassette of tracks by two Pakistani singers, Akram Rahi and Naseebo Lal.

The scholars were upset about lyrics in one Punjabi-language song that said: "God has written our luck with an ordinary pen." "God's pen can never be ordinary and hence the poetic expression is un-Islamic," said Molvi Hafiz Aijaz of the Jamia mosque, in Rajouri.

"Those who sell or buy the collection of the songs will go to hell," he said. But shopkeepers said the songs were such hits that they could barely keep up with demand. Rajouri trader Rakesh Kumar said store owners had raised the price of the cassette from 35 to 55 rupees.

A police spokesman suspected the cassettes were being marketed in occupied Kashmir by entrepreneurs who recorded the songs off Pakistani television and radio. Maulana Dil Mohammad, another religious leader in Rajouri who condemned the album, called for action in Pakistan to stop the music.

"The album would have been banned in Pakistan had the religious leaders and government heard the songs," he said. But Rahi said the ban had nothing to do with religion. "I am a Muslim and I understand Islam fully well. The line criticized by some Kashmiri clerics is an old saying," Rahi, 42, said in Lahore.

Rahi said he has released 130 albums over the past several years and "there is nothing objectionable" in the latest cassette which he made some five months ago. "Maybe they are opposing it because an Indian company has released this album," he said. -AFP