By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net
Srinagar: Muhammad Aamir Manzoor, the 26-year-old Srinagar based youth who founded an Islamic radio station serving ‘Halal entertainment’ in the Valley claimed he was receiving death threats and alleged harassment at the hands of some “government” agencies.
“For the past two years, a sustained effort is being exerted to push us to the wall so that we withdraw from our work. Death threats are being given on daily basis. We don’t know why this is being done,” said Aamir.
He said that the issue has been brought in the notice of the local police and security agencies from time to time.
While recalling an incident happened few months back, Aamir claimed that he was interrogated in Mumbai by some agency in the middle of the night and they profiled him too.
“Now the people who hosted me or met me are being interrogated as well. We have apprehensions that concentrated efforts are being made to create an apprehensive environment around our activities,” he said.
Aamir terms the harassment as efforts to malign his reputation despite the fact that his efforts are focused only on moral and ethical upliftment of different sections of the society through the use of modern technology.
Aamir said that he wasn’t even left untouched in Kashmir also. “In March 2017, a person came to my school office where I was alone in the school lawn and he tried to drag me out of school gate but my secretary came and Alhamdulillah Allah protected me .”
Aamir further says that he has successfully worked for reformation of multiple vices in the society especially drug addiction, depression and environmental degradation.
“We have no political affiliation or disruptive ideology whatsoever. From the onset we have been carrying out our work with utmost transparency and encourage positive and contributive review of our activities and modus operandi,” he explained.
In July 2016, seeing the influence and the common use of frequency modulation (FM) stations by people, particularly by the youths of the valley, Aamir had decided to take a similar initiate. Doing his Masters in Islamic Studies at Kashmir University, he started an Islamic radio station, which will serve ‘Halal entertainment’ in the Valley.
The radio station named Saut-ul-Islam was inaugurated in July, 2016 but was put on hold till December, due to the unrest following death of militant leader, Burhan Wani.
The radio station which is first of its kind in Kashmir, went live last December, with a video of famous vocalist Zubair Salafi singing a Nasheed in the studio of radio station and the broadcasting is currently on testing mode.
Apart from Radio Saut-ul-Islam, Aamir is also the founder and the president of Islamic Fraternity (Kashmir), Editor-in-Chief of The Islamic Revival (Magazine), Chairman of Centre for Humanitarian Aid, Islamic Global School/Rawzat ul Atfaal Pre-School both in Srinagar.
Aamir Manzoor: Kashmiri youth who started Islamic radio station to promote ‘Halal’ entertainment