By Salman Sultan, TwoCircles.net,
Azamgarh: Has Congress leader Digvijay Singh’s Azamgarh visit and his questioning of the genuineness of Batla House encounter, encouraged Muslim Members of Parliament to visit the town and meet affected families? Can’t say. But Rajya Sabha Member Mr Muhammad Adeeb is first Muslim MP to visit Azamgarh about one and half years after the encounter wherein two local youths (allegedly involved in terror blasts in Delhi) were killed and about a dozen other natives picked in terror cases.
Mr. Adeeb visited Azamgarh yesterday and addressed a public meeting in the morning and held a meeting with select socially/politically active people of Azamgarh in the evening.
He made the gathering aware of the political scenario vis-à-vis Muslims and laid bare the nexus between fascist forces of our country and ISI. He told about the common interest of establishment of a theocratic state and the effort of these forces in vitiating the environment conducive for communal harmony. He discussed the book authored by Mr. Jaswant Singh and told about specific secular credentials of Mr. Jinnah which could not find a place in the book.
Mr. Adeeb expressed his unhappiness over formation of small exclusively Muslim based political parties and exhorted Muslim members of different political parties to assert themselves. He was of the opinion that forthrightness along with honesty is respected in all political parties and a determined integral Muslim may raise issues pertaining to Muslim community in different political parties. In this way leadership of political parties may be sensitized to the burning issues faced by Muslim community.
He exhorted the gathering to make the Muslim leadership accountable and in case of non-performance of their leaders greet them with black flags instead of garlanding them.
The audience raised a number of questions. One political activist lamented tactics of sidelining Muslims who raised issues uncomfortable to their party leadership. He also ridiculed the nice talks delivered by political stalwarts, supposedly sympathetic to Muslim issues, who visited Azamgarh in the past. One fellow wondered as to why Mr. A.R. Antulay was not supported by even Muslim M.Ps when he aired his suspicion about 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
Mr. Adeeb was told about his non-performance in the monsoon session of Rajya Sabha. It was appreciated that he was quite active in the winter session (after TwoCircles.net report card?). Referring to his specific question about NHRC to which Mr. Ajay Maken submitted a written statement, Mr. Adeeb was asked that would it be possible for him to raise question about NHRC report in seemingly fake Batla House encounter? He explained the question asking lottery procedure of Rajya Sabha.