By TCN News,
Hyderabad: Popular Front of India has condemned the decision of Andhra Pradesh police not to allow its already-announced public meeting where the national campaign for Social Justice Conference due in New Delhi in November was to be inaugurated. PFI has termed it as a discrimination against Muslims.
The Andhra Pradesh State Executive Committee of PFI has resolved that the “denial of police permission to hold the inaugural meeting of Social Justice Conference campaign in Hyderabad is a clear case of discrimination against the minority community.”
The inaugural meeting was to be held on 2nd October in Andhra Pradesh’s capital. PFI is holding Social Justice Conference from 26-27 November in New Delhi.
Giving details of the incident, Syed Abdul Lateef, Media In-charge of PFI, Andhra Pradesh, said: “The police have initially denied permission at Khilwath Ground near Charminar and at the adjoining private hall stating the prohibitory order prevailing in the area as the reason. When the objection to holding the hall programme was raised by the organizers, the police suggested to shift the same to another area and police cooperation was assured.
Accordingly, the programme was arranged at M H Hall located in Cyberabad area. But when this hall programme was about to start, a consignment of police occupied the venue and obstructed the meeting.”
Lateef further said that the move was an obvious provocation, yet the party workers and audience remained peaceful and silent and dispersed peacefully when the police did not allow them to hold the meeting.
“In spite of this extremely provocative act, a disciplined audience of more than two thousand people sat for more than one hour with utmost patience and decorum obeying the instruction of organizers. When it became evident that the police had come with the prior decision to obstruct the meeting, the mob dispersed peacefully as requested by Popular Front national chairman and state president,” Lateef said.
Andhra Pradesh State Executive Committee of PFI opined that “there are reasons to believe that there exists in state police a section highly prejudiced against Muslims. The memories of innocent Muslim youths arbitrarily arrested, falsely implicated and mercilessly tortured for the Makkah Masjid blasts actually engineered by Sangh Parivar outfits have not yet died out. Recently, the media has exposed a circular issued by the state police intelligence department infringing into the Muslim religious right of giving and taking zakat in the month of Ramzan.”
PFI said this all is happening in a secular government regime.
“The duty of police intelligence is supposed to be collecting the information and not threatening people. It is not surprising that in BJP ruled states police is compelled act as tools of their communal agenda. But in Andhra Pradesh where the government is run by a secular party like Congress, the police discrimination against minority organisations is an insult to its own credentials and secular claims.”
The meeting of Andhra Pradesh State Executive Committee of PFI urged the Congress and its allies to take stock of this serious situation and to clean up both law and order and intelligence wings of state police from communal and anti-minority prejudices and double standards.
The meeting chalked out statewide publicity campaign programmes of the Social Justice Conference scheduled to be held at Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi on 26-27 November 2011.
State president Mr. Mohammed Arif Ahmed presided over the meeting. Those participated in the meeting include Mr.Abdul Waris, Mr. D.S. Habibullah, Syed Nazeer Shaheen, Mohammed Abdullah Khan, Shaik Abdus Subhan Qasmi, M.Abdul Rasheed Rashadi, S. Mansoor Basha, Syed Abdul Lateef Qadri etc.