The sacred relic known as the Mu-i- Mubarak believed to be the hair of Prophet Mohammad himself- was purchased by a Kashmiri merchant Khwaja Nuruddin in Bijapur near Hyderabad in 1699. it was transported to Srinagar later. On December 27, 1963, it disappeared from the Hazratbal Mosque. Thousands of people took out black flag procession. Schools, colleges and shops pulled down their shutters and vehicles vanished from the streets.

there were public meetings in which Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs alike took part, there were some incidents of rioting and a curfew was imposed in all these areas. The government blamed these attacks as ‘anti-national elements’.

Consequences

• Violence and disturbances –  following the theft of the relic, violent communal rioting broke out on January 3 in the Khulna district of East Pakistan. the disturbances here began when a procession of 20,000 demonstrators entered the town and continued till Jan 9. Hindus were murdered and their houses were set ablaze. On January 11, when the riots in Calcutta reached their height, all cases of arson were reported and the fire services were unable to fight the fires without armed escorts. the police repeatedly opened fire on Jan 10-11 and a dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed. subsequently, the riots spread to Bihar, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh.
• Public outrage- on January4, 1964, the relic was recovered by the officials of Central Bureau Of Intelligence and people in Srinagar rejoiced. But, on March 18, students attacked schools and colleges which had not closed in support of the demand for a judicial inquiry in to the death of a student killed in police firing on January 10. the laboratories of the Scottish Church College in Kolkata were completely wrecked, and at Howrah five policemen were injured by A mob which was stoning a school. At Belghoria, in the 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, 21 people were killed in an outbreak of violence on March 16.