By TCN News,
New Delhi: The Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) has called for caution and a thorough investigation before drawing conclusions as to those responsible for the Hyderabad blasts.
In a memorandum to the Union Home Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, CSF general secretary, Joseph Dias said, “Within hours of the blasts, there has been hype that Pakistan and Indian Mujahideen is behind the blasts.”
“Now one can expect many Muslim youth to be arrested, something that has not stood up to judicial scrutiny,” he added. He sought to draw attention to the fact that in the aftermath of the May and August 2007 blasts in Hyderabad, the Metropolitan Sessions Judge Radha Krishna acquitted all the 21 accused as the prosecution had failed to bring any evidence to prove the charges against them.
Dias added, “The government should refrain from stereotyping the Muslim community and making arrests, unless it is sure of the culprits behind the blasts.”
Dais further said, “By all means arrest the real culprits but don’t frame the innocent, just to show ‘results’. We are tired of the rhetoric and jingoism indirectly targeting Muslims, repeatedly resulting in polarizing the majority vote and peddling a soft Hindutva in the country.”
“It is a fact, that when cases are heard in courts of law, the prosecution fails to prove the allegations they leveled against innocent Muslim youth. Many of them after suffering confinement and disgrace for as long as 20 years, the best years of their life,” said Joseph Dias.