By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,
Thiruvananthapuram: It is not right to put blame on one community in the name of terrorism, opined Oommen Chandy, the Leader of Opposition in the Kerala Assembly. He was speaking at the Mathamaithri (communal harmony) meeting organized by the UDF in front of the state Secretariat.
Mr Chandy said that terrorism was a problem that all should face together. Activities on the matter should take into confidence all sections of people. The wrong done by an individual should not be given prominence looking at his community, he added.
Gopinathan Nair, noted Gandhian, while inaugurating the meeting expressed his hope that the country would come back to communal harmony. Kerala has a history of keeping away from communal riots and bloody revolutions when they had taken place in other states, said Panakkad Hyderali Shihab Thangal, Muslim League state president while giving the key-note address. Our leaders had taught that there should not be terrorism in the name of religion. Religions grew not by weapons but by the power of faith.
Chopping the palm of the professor to protest against the question paper controversy is anti-Islamic, said Hasan Ashrafi al Baqawi, Beemapalli chief Imam. Both parties have done wrong. A wrong should be fought with a good deed, he added.
Leaders of the various parties comprising of the UDF attended the meeting. The MLAs came directly from the Assembly. Youth League, Youth Congress and Kerala Congress members held demonstration in front of the Secretariat felicitating the meeting.
In another development, the ‘Service’, the mouthpiece of the Nayar Service Society, reportedly opined that there was no use in blaming any particular community for the attack on the professor. The professor’s palm was chopped off as a part of the effort to grow terrorism in Kerala also by creating an emotional situation in the name of religion. Those who were responsible for having created such a circumstance as well as those who exploited the opportunity should be blamed. No religion can promote terrorism.
The magazine continues that the government and the religious organizations concerned should have interfered and solved the problem without giving chance for such a crime as this. Secularism and democracy are there only in speeches in the country. Efforts are on to give a religious colour for terrorism. And it is not at all suitable for the system or culture of secular India, it adds.
Professor TJ Joseph, lecturer of Malayalam in the Newman College in Thodupuzha, was attacked by a group of men who chopped off his right palm on July 4. The professor was accused in the controversial question paper issue and had just been released from jail on bail. The police investigation into the case has led to widespread raids and grilling of several persons, mostly activists or sympathizers of the Popular Front of India. The organsiation’s state office was raided last day and the PFI has come strongly against portraying them as the criminals even before the investigation is over. The organsiation has strongly denied any role in the attack and has expressed its willingness to cooperate with any investigation.