By Imran Inamdar, TwoCircles.net
The campaign for Muslim reservation in Maharashtra continues to gain strength, with Thursday witnessing yet another awareness campaign in Osmanabad district. As many as 1.5 lakh Muslims gathered in the district and conducted a 3-kilometre silent march.
Before proceeding, the crowd rallied at Gazi maidan at 12.30 pm where eight students from different school delivered speeches on “Importance and need of Muslim reservation”.
The crowd also sang the National anthem before the march. The turnout was impressive especially considering that the city has only 30,000 Muslims while the total number of Muslims in the district is about 3 lakh.
The preparation of rally started over a month ago, with activists from various political parties, NGOs and religious groups joining hands by sidelining their internal clashes for the cause of entire community.
The organising committee members and volunteers visited all the Talukas and small villages to conduct a meeting and invite Muslims.
A key organiser of the rally, Ateeque Shaikh, spoke with Twocircles.net about the March. “This was really a big day for us. Muslims of different sects sacrificed their time, energy and money for the social, educational cause and displayed great unity for the first time in the history of the city. The march was peaceful and disciplined and we got good cooperation from the police department,” he said. “We have purposely encouraged students to address the crowd to ensure point-to-point informative speeches and avoid long speeches.
During rally activists of Maratha Seva Sangh and Sambhaji Brigade distributed water pouches and extended all kind of support.
After covering important areas of the city, the crowd, most of whom were holding tricolour in their hands, reached the District collector office at 3.30 pm and handed a memorandum demanding reservation and no interferences in religious freedom.
Organising committee member Shaikh Masood commented that “The government doesn’t seem serious in giving reservation to us and the interference in Shariah law has also increased. It is a suitable time to wake up the government and show that we are alive and we know well how to get and secure our constitutional rights in a democratic way.”
After this huge success, the Kalamb Taluka of the same District is buckling up for a rally after two weeks.