TCN News
Prominent individuals, groups and organizations have come together to demand the withdrawal of sedition case filed against Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, Chairman of Delhi Minorities Commission. In a public joint statement, these signatories including Muslim clerics, leaders, journalists and scholars have condemned the FIR against Khan, sounding alarm against “the targeting of Dr Zafarul Islam Khan by the Islamophobes over his posts on social media.”
The statement “condemns the action of the government against him by booking cases under sections 124A (sedition) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth) and raiding his house on 7th May 2020.” The signatories included women activists from Hyderabad Muslim Women’s Forum, Arshad Madani of Jamiat Ulema e Hind, Syed Sadatullah Hussaini of Jamaat e Islami Hind, Tauqeer Raza Khan of Bareilly’s Milli Ittehad Council, O M A Salam of Popular Front, Labeed Shafi of Student Islamic Organization of India, Abdul Hafiz Lakhani, editor, Siyasat, Ahmedabad, Dr Manzoor Alam of All India Milli Council, Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas of Welfare Party of India, Navaid Hamid of Muslim Majlis e Mushawaat among several renowned social activists and professionals.
The signatories have detailed that in recent times, the BJP is after the Muslim community, “their leaders and intellectuals and religious scholars are defamed and the common Muslims being subjected to attacks and destruction of their houses and business establishments thereby making them economically weak,” indicating that “all this is being observed by the international community especially the Arab world.” It has praised Canada’s recent action against Islamophobic posts on social media, warning that they would not tolerate any kind of Islamophobia. Dr. Khan had thanked the Kuwaiti government for raising voice against the Islamophobes and standing with the oppressed Muslims in India through his posts on social media, in a similar context. The statement argued that his post “does not violate any law nor does it intentionally or unintentionally cause any discord amongst the different communities of India. Therefore, the raid on his house is highly objectionable and condemnable.”
The statement accuses hate mongers and Islamophobes of going on “propagating hatred and media trial,” backed by Hindutva bigots. Condemning the raid at Khan’s house, the signatories have declared that “the social media post has been blown out of proportion and deliberately misinterpreted by the anti- Muslim Hindutva brigade whose sole intention is to assassinate the character of Dr Zafarul Islam Khan.”
Reminding Khan’s endeavours of resolving issues of the Indian religious minorities under his chairmanship of the Delhi Minorities Commission, the statement refutes charges of sedition against him. The statement highlights how he “has defended India many times in the Arab World on crucial issues.” Questioning police action on the raid at Khan’s house, the statement has questioned police ineffectiveness in booking no case “on the trolling of activists, writers and scholars on social media,” calling out the BJP ministers deserving of spreading communal hatred through their “hateful, instigating and vengeful speeches.”
The statement demanded that the hate propaganda against Dr. Khan be immediately stopped and “those responsible for this malicious hate campaign against both Dr. Khan and the Indian Muslims are brought to book,” urging the Government “to take action against the hate mongers in form of news channels, Hindutva bigots, right-wing politicians and others who are spreading hate against Dr Zafarul Islam Khan and defaming him.”
“India is fast becoming Islamophobic and the action taken against a harmless honest message on social media is another proof of this,” it said in its endnote, outlining that the way the police has hastily charged Dr Islam with sedition and raid on his house “shows the path towards which democracy and justice is headed in India.”