By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government’s program to provide compensation to the Muslim youths ended in a photo-op session. Despite protests from several acquitted youths whose names were not in the government list, the state government went ahead and concluded the program in such a hurry, that looks like that compensation issue must have been a huge liability on them.
In response to the huge cry from many Muslim organizations to review the list and include some more names, district collector of Hyderabad Mr. Natrajan Gulzar released a new review list but in this list no additional name was included, rather one more Muslim youth was excluded from the list.
Mohd Rayeesuddin’s name was there in the earlier list, but now it was excluded and the reason given is he has a case pending against him. TCN spoke to Rayeesuddin about it. He said “Govt has played a dirty joke against me and my family, first my name was included, now it is being excluded in the new list made by the collector. The reason given is my name is there in the charge sheet of the case of DGP office encounter, in which N.K. Ameen, a Gujarat police officer gunned down a Hyderabadi youth in front of the DGP office. My name is also included in the charge sheet under sec 307, and Narender Ameen is booked under sec 302, but Ameen is in Gujarat prison for the Shorabuddin fake encounter case, so until he is not prosecuted my case won’t start, so till the case won’t end I am not eligible for compensation”.
But amidst all these controversies, the government went ahead with the programme at 4 p.m today. The program was convened by Mohd Ilyas Razvi, managing director of APMFC, and it was presided by Mohd Ali Rafat, head of minority welfare department while minister for minority affairs Mohd Ahmedullah was the chief guest. But what is interesting is that the invitation which was given to the press included the names of 5 ministers from the state as the chief guests, but no minister except the minority affairs turned up for the program. However, many MLAs of MIM were also present on the occasion.
The program started by the presidential address of Mohd Ali Rafat. He said today’s program is the acknowledgement of the mistakes done by the police. He said the amount provided by the government can’t compensate their grievances properly but still it will give them the lost status in the society. He further said the A.P police are not going to exactly providing the character certificate, but it will be a proof that the respectable youths were not involved in any criminal cases.
Then Akbaruddin Owaisi, Opposition Leader (of MIM) in Andhra Assembly spoke. He said that government have accepted their wrong, now the wrong doers must be punished. He welcomed chief minister’s initiative for providing compensation, but criticized the Govt for not providing compensation to all the acquitted youths. He demanded that case which is still open of acquitted youths should be closed down immediately. He said pending cases against some youths in different issues should not become a hindrance to provide compensation to the youths who have suffered a lot. To the acquitted youths, he said this compensation can’t undo the wrong done with you, but it is a proof that you were innocent. Lastly while ending his speech he gave all the credit of this initiative of the government to his party MIM.
Mohd Ahmedullah, minister for minority affairs was the last speaker. He spoke for just few minutes because of his limited and broken Urdu (his mother tongue is Telugu). He said A.P congress government is the first government in the whole country to take such kind of noble initiative. He said blasts have happened in many places and innocent Muslims were arrested in different cases but no government till now has repent and acknowledged there mistakes like the A.P government has done.
Next the cheque giving ceremony started. Only fifteen youths were provided cheques by the hand of Akbaruddin Owaisi and Mohd Ahmedullah. The rest were to get their cheques separately by the minority ministry officials. When some of the youths while receiving compensation cheque tried to tell their grievances to the minister, that their charge sheets are still open and those guilty police officers are threatening them not to speak, they were silenced by the minister saying that they will discuss this later.
The character certificate which was promised to be given at the program was not given. Rather it was announced that interested youths can collect it tomorrow from MWD office.
Shoaib Jagirdar and Syed Imraan Khan are both uncle and nephew. While Shoaib belongs to Maharashtra and Imraan belongs to Hyderabad. They were the first to get detained by the government in this case, both have spent nearly two years in jail, both were acquitted by the court later. But their names were not in list of acquitted persons to get the compensation and character certificate. They both were present at the venue. They put their grievances before Akbaruddin Owaisi who in turn said, he can’t do anything till the cases are pending against them, and asked them to meet him after two days, so he can see what he can do.
TCN spoke to both of them. Imraan said before implicating him in Mecca Masjid bomb blast case police put one more false case on both of them of making a fake passport. He said that case is still pending so they can’t receive the compensation. Shoaib said in his whole life he has not applied for the passport, like the other cases put by the police this is also fake, but police have not even submitted its charge sheet in the court to make it more delay for us and we can’t get eligible for compensation and good character certificate.
Program ended with chaos in the hall when the left out youths started telling their grievances to the government officials and the politicians, but no one paid heave to them as soon as the photo-op session was finished politicians and the Govt officials left the venue. One can judge the seriousness of this program by this fact that even the banner put by the government officials on the stage, carried wrong spelling of Mecca Masjid, a reminder that the saga of mistakes and errors ended on another mistake.