By TCN Special Correspondent,
New Delhi: Nearly two hundred rights groups and senior activists from different quarters of India has express their concern over the case of Abdul Nasser Madani, a spiritual leader from Kerala and head of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who has been in jail since August 2010 for his alleged involvement in Bangalore Serial blasts.
Signed by stalwarts like Aruna Roy, Binayak Sen, Dr Anand Teltumbde, Anand Patwarthan and dozens of others, the appeal reads, “We are shocked at the way Abdul Nasser Ma’dani, his family and supporters have been harassed for a long period by the Karnataka government”.
“Earlier Ma’dani, falsely accused in the Coimbatore blast case, was in jail for more than nine years after which the judge felt he was innocent. This itself is a statement on the way the executive machinery, judiciary and legislature works in this country. If this had happened in any other country, he would have been legally provided compensation for the human rights violation he suffered due to his wrong arrest under fabricated charges,” asserts the signatories.
It further says, “The human rights violation of Abdul Nasser Ma’dani is also a symbol of the way religious minorities have become second class citizens in the world’s largest democracy. We believe that what Ma’dani is facing today is due to the fact that he is a spiritual leader of one of the minority communities in India. We condemn the process of fabrication of false cases against minorities and the activists of people’s movements. We demand immediate release of Abdul Nasser Ma’dani as well as withdrawal of false charges against minorities, dalits, adivasis and people’s movements”.
The groups and concerned individuals also expressed their concerns over growing saffronisation of the Indian administration. “Another matter of great concern is the growing saffronisation of the Indian administration itself whereby police and other agencies blatantly discriminate against Muslims, treating the entire community as ‘terrorism suspects’. There are hundreds if not thousands of Muslim youth in Indian prisons on false charges and denied basic justice in a phenomenon that is a shame to the values enshrined in the Indian Constitution”.
The signatories have called upon the government and its agencies to immediately “uphold the rule of law and implement the secular and democratic principles of the Indian Constitution and stop behaving as if the country has become a ‘Hindu Rashtra”. They concluded, “In the absence of fairness to the large populations of dalits, adivasis and Muslims living in this country the future for Indian democracy can only be bleak and a recipe for perpetual conflict.”