By IINA,
Mumbai : Muslims and Christians in India’s smallest state of Goa are petitioning to local authorities to provide a burial ground for the Muslim minority in the state. “In fact, the burial of our dead is being treated as if it were a garbage issue,” reads a petition by the Christian and Muslim Dialogue For Life, reported The Times of India newspaper yesterday. The Muslim graveyard in Goa’s commercial city of Salcete has reached its fullest. Muslims now have to travel to the neighboring state of Karnataka to bury their deceased there. “An issue that currently concerns us is the failure of the state to respond to the legitimate needs of a graveyard for the Muslims of Salcete,” said the petition addressed to chief minister Digambar Kamat.
Muslims have proposed a burial ground in Macazana, Aquem Alto region. They also proposed establishing a cemetery in Sao Jose de Areal where they have brought 20,000 sq m of land at a cost of 2.8 million rupees. But the Muslim proposals have been met with local objections. “Just as nobody wants garbage disposed in their constituencies, so also people seem to reject the idea of having a graveyard in their vicinity,” said the petition. “Our dead are not garbage. They are our fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers.”
Indian Muslims, who make up around 13 percent of India’s 1.1 billion population, complain of being discriminated against. They account for less than seven percent of public service employees, only five percent of railways workers, around four percent of banking employees and there are only 29,000 Muslims in India’s 1.3 million-strong military. Muslims have also repeatedly complained of being selectively and unfairly targeted by anti-terror police. They also accuse authorities of feeding stereotypes about their religion.