NEW DELHI — It was hardly a Hallmark moment.

As a Valentine's Day card smoldered, more than 100 members of the Hindu extremist group Shiv Sena chanted "Death to Valentine's Day" and "People who celebrate Valentine's Day should be pelted with shoes!"

Valentine's Day has in the past two decades made strong inroads in India as the country has slowly opened itself up to the outside world — its economic boom bringing in not just foreign investment but also aspects of Western culture virtually unknown here a quarter century ago.

Across the country, stores stock heart-shaped balloons and chocolates, restaurants offer Valentine's Day specials and young lovers find refuge from prying eyes in the parks.

It's a state of affairs that enrages Hindu and Muslim hard-liners, who on today vented just as they do every Valentine's Day — burning cards, holding rallies and even threatening to beat couples caught canoodling in public, a strict no-no for those who claim to defend traditional Indian values.

"We have come to know that in America, even unmarried girls as young as 11 or 12 years have become mothers ... and every second man there is divorced," said Jai Bhagwan Goel, chief of the Shiv Sena's north India branch. "This is their culture — it cannot be accepted here."

Still, even if some lovers stayed out of sight, they made their desires known, placing ads on special Valentine's Day pages in newspapers.

"My heart is like a cabbage," declared a man named Manoj to some lucky lady. "Divided into two; the leaves are for others and the heart for you."