By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: In a shocking revelation, it has turned out that the Delhi Religious Committee, which had recommended the demolition of Masjid Noor in Jangpura, doesn’t have any religious representatives at all. After several RTI applications to the Delhi Government Home Department under which the committee comes, the Zakat Foundation of India got to know that there is not even a single religious, let alone any Muslim, representative in the committee.
Talking to TwoCircles.net, head of ZFI, Dr. Zafar Mahmood said, “How can it be that a committee known as Religious Committee doesn’t have any religious representative? It’s simply ridiculous and a joke on the name of law and administration.”
Crowd praying at the site of demolished structure of Noor Mosque in Jangpura
The present Religious Committee of Delhi Government consists of Principal Secretary GS Patnaik, Joint Commissioner of Police Ajay Kashyap, Joint Secretary (home) RN Sharma, DSP Special Branch Ajit Sangla, SDM Vasant Vihar, RK Thakur, SDM Defence Colony, Lallan Singh, SDM Patel Nagar Pramod Kumar besides several faceless government employees including Paramjeet Singh, SY Ram, Manoj Kumar, Ramesh Chandar and AK Saini.
Actually in its RTI query the ZFI had asked for the minutes of the meeting of the committee held on June16, 2009 in which it had recommended to demolish the mosque in Jangpura locality. But the department denied disclosing the details of what actually happened and what was discussed in the meeting on the pretext that the details can’t be made public as they aren’t covered by the RTI Act.
But the fact is that the people in the committee don’t want to get their hypocrisy exposed that’s why they didn’t want to give out information which can very much be accessed under the RTI Act. Dr Mahmood has now decided to appeal in the Central Information Commission against denial of information.
The department of Home also failed to provide the copy of the actual order of the Lieutenant Governor, Tajender Khanna giving out the final orders for the demolition. In fact, the recommendation by the concerned officer of the department of Home has been treated as the approval of the Governor, argued Dr Mahmood, who has served in Indian Revenue Services.