By TCN News,
Chennai: In a latest development showing that the pressure is being mounted against Home Minister P. Chidambaram to withdraw his objectionable statement on Jihad, Tamilnadu’s Shariath Protection Council is considering to take a civil or criminal action against the minister.
Shariath Protection Council has written a letter to the Union Minister urging him to clarify his position on the media reports about his statement equating Jihad with terrorism and describing it as a war against unbelievers. The Council has termed the minister’s statement on Jihad as baseless and a gross insult to Islam and Muslims.
“In your 22nd Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment lecture in New Delhi on Wednesday the 23rd (December 2009) instant, you are reported to have termed jihadh as “a war or struggle against unbelievers.” Kindly let me know: whether you said that sentence, which the media has reported? On what authority have you based your assertion, which, I have the least hesitation to state, is baseless and a gross insult to Islam and Muslims,” said S M Pasha, Convenor of Shariath Protection Council in his letter to Chidambaram written on December 30.
Shariath Protection Council has asked him to clarify his position in a week otherwise it will be forced to take civil or criminal action against him.
“If I fail to receive your reply within a reasonably short period – say, one week from the date of receipt of this letter, I will constrained to take such civil and/or criminal action as I deem it fit and necessary in the circumstances of the case,” Pasha said in the letter.
Meanwhile, various Muslim organizations and religious leaders have condemned Chidambaram for his statement on Jihad. They include Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Social Democratic Party of India and Tamilnadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam.