By TCN News,
New Delhi: Leaders of Muslim organizations have expressed serious concern over the illegal detention and arrest of Muslim youths from various parts of the country. In a joint memorandum sent Monday evening to P Chidambaram, Union Home Minister and Wajahat Habibullah, Chairman, National Commission for Minorities, the leaders demanded them to look into the recent detention of Darbhanga engineer Fasih Mahmood and two Kashmiri students of Jamiatul Falah “on an urgent basis in order to offer some solace to the families of these victims.”
“Alarmed as the Muslim community is at the resumed serial, at random and unending saga of arrests of Muslim youth from various parts of the country on apparently no tangible charges, two more such recent incidents are agitating the community,” they said in the memorandum.
Fasih Mahmood, an engineer in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, according to media reports in both Saudi Arabia and India, was deported to India on 13 May this year at Indian government’s request on alleged “terror” charges and so far there is no information about his whereabouts.
Two very young Kashmiri students, studying in a reputed madrasa (Jamiatul Falah at Bilaryaganj, district Azamgarh, U.P.) were arrested by some unknown security agency at Aligarh station on 24 May while travelling on Kaifiyat train from Azamgarh to Delhi to visit their ailing cousin who had come to the capital for medical treatment. The name of the agency and the two boys’ whereabouts are not known despite efforts at both Delhi and Lucknow.
“The Muslim community is pained to see this continuing saga which has earlier seen Journalist Kazmi’s arrest while seemingly there is no evidence against him. We request you to kindly look into the above two matters on an urgent basis in order to offer some solace to the families of these victims who have fell foul of the security agencies’ultra vigilance where victims are picked up on mere suspicion without any real, hard and tangible proof and thereafter they are kept under illegal detention while the agencies try to somehow obtain some incriminating “evidence” or secure their forced confession via torture which is illegal and against India’s international obligations,” they said.
“These illogical incidents are seriously eroding the Muslim community’s goodwill towards UPA,” they warned.
Signatories to the memorandum
Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan, President, All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat
Mujtaba Farooq, Chairman, Coordination Committee for Indian Muslims
Muhammad Ahmad, Political Secretary, Jamaat-e Islami Hind
Abdul Hameed Nomani, Secretary, Jamiat Ulama-e Hind
Dr Tasleem Rahmani, President, Muslim Political Council of India
Dr SQR Ilyas, General Secretary, Welfare Party of India
Zaheer Zaidi, President, Shia Point
Maulana Muhsin Taqwi, President, National Council of Shia Ulama
Shuaib Shaikh, Secretary, Students Organisation of India
AK Kidwai, Secretary, Association for Protection of Civil Rights
Maulana Ataur Rahman Qasmi, Director, Shah Waliullah Institute
Maulana Jalal Haidar Naqvi, Jt. Secretary, All India Majlis Ulama-e Hind