By TCN News,
New Delhi: Prominent lawyer and social activist Mehmood Pracha has been elected as the president of the South Asian Minorities Lawyers Association (SAMLA) for a five years term.
Pracha was elected during the general assembly meeting of SAMLA held on Saturday.
Formed in 2008, SAMLA is an association of lawyers committed to promotion of rights of minorities in South Asia. SAMLA believes that protection of minorities’ rights is necessary to attain peace and prosperity in the region.
Pracha shall further constitute his team of governing body to carry the work forward, Feroz Khan Ghazi, advocate and secretary general of SAMLA, said in a release here.
Ghazi said that SAMLA works on the understanding that presence of one community as majority in one country and as a minority in another provides immense opportunities for further strengthening of bonds between their governments and their people.
Some of the other prominent members who attended the meeting include Nasir Aziz, S Mansoor Ali, Farrukh Khan and Salar M Khan. After his election as the president, Pracha said he would strive to protect human rights of minorities and other weaker sections and to promote the message of SAMLA throughout the South Asian Region.
Stating that the countries in the South Asian region are intimately connected with each other and these not only share geography but also history, culture and religions; Pracha said, “We should use the shared values for promotion of justice, peace and prosperity in the region”.
Pracha is the grandson of freedom fighter late Abdul Haq Pracha, who was a close confidant of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. His grandfather was the president of District Congress Committee at the crucial time of partition of the country i.e. 1946-48.
Pracha is one of the pioneers of a specialized field of ‘Outer Space Law’ in India. He is associated with the International Institute of Space Law, the ‘European Centre of Space Law’ (ECSL), operating under the auspices of European Space Agency (ESA), a European Union (EU) body, as their member since 2003 and 2005 respectively. He has contributed to highly acclaimed research papers on space law, both nationally and internationally.
He has been providing invaluable legal advice to Delhi Safai Karamchari Commission and National Commission for Women. Since 1992, he is promoting legal awareness among general public as the president of an all India voluntary organization called ‘Organization for Promotion of Legal Awareness’ (OPLA). His service in the field of legal aid has been recognized internationally and has been invited to various international conferences on legal aid to poor, the release said.