By Abdul Hameed, TwoCircles.net
Mumbai: In first of its kind meeting on the issue Muslim women from across Maharashtra gathered in Mumbai yesterday to discuss ways to eliminate terrorism from India. They expressed their concern on the rise in terror in the country and discussed ways to eliminate it.
“After every terror attack we just condemn it. It won’t work anymore. Time has come for us to come into open and work with the society to root it out,” said Ghazala Azad of Awami Bharat, the organizer of the program held at Urdu Markaz, Urdu Girls High School in Dongri,
Awami Bharat was established in 2006 mainly to expose the politics of terror and to provide a chance to the Muslim women so that they could articulate their point of views on terrorism. Feroz Mithiborwala, national president of Awami Bharat told TwoCircles.net: “There was no Muslim women representation in any post-26/11 meetings held to condemn terror and discuss strategy to combat it. The meet is meant for giving them chance to express their views on the issue.”
The participants, however, were of the view that terrorism in India has been politicized and war on terror is not genuine as for every act of terror Muslim youths are arrested.
Shadab Siddiqee, a participant, said, ‘There is an international conspiracy to defame Muslims. It cannot be foiled unless Muslims wage a united campaign against it forgetting their Maslaks.’ She further said that innocent Muslims illegally being arrested in terror cases should get our favor. ‘There should be an organization in each state that has some lawyers who can provide legal assistance to the innocents who are arrested.’
Feroz Mithiborwala said politics of riots has been replaced by politics of terror. Behind the terror activities in India there are three elements: government, Hindu extremists and Muslim extremists.
A participant was of the view that tarnishing of Islam in the garb of terrorism has begun to backfire as non-Muslims are now taking interest in Islam and want to know about it. ‘There are some orthodox people who poison their children’s mind with anti-Islamic thoughts. There are many students who after interaction with me said that they now love Islam. These very students told me that they had not good opinion about Islam earlier,’ said Nagma Javed, a professor in SNDT Women’s University Mumbai.
Awami Bharat intends to hold some more meetings of Muslim women and a big Muslim women conference on the issue.