By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net
Bhopal, May 29: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, (BJP), in Madhya Pradesh in particular and the United Progressive Alliance at the Center in general came under vitriolic attack here as speaker after speaker without mincing words took to task the two governments for pushing Muslims to the wall in the wake of communal riots and other atrocities.
The speakers warned that they would not allow Madhya Pradesh to become another Gujarat, where thousand of Muslims were massacred in 2002. They further warned that before Muslims lose patience they should be granted justice due to them. A deadline till September 2007 i.e. till Ramzan has been fixed for the Bharatiya Janata Party ruled Madhya Pradesh Government to solve the problems of beleaguered Muslims.
The Madhya Pradesh unit of Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind organized a protest conference on “Huqooq-e-Insaniyat & Husool-e-Insaf” (Human Rights & Seeking Justice) here at Iqbal Maidan wherein the Ulemas from all over India and others issued the warnings to the governments. They said the communal forces are targeting the Muslims in Madhya Pradesh and all over India.
Mufti Abd-ur-Razzaq, president Jamiat-e-Ulema Madhya Pradesh who presided over the conference, thundered that in Madhya Pradesh more than 100 communal flare-ups occurred in the last three years of BJP rule. Three places in Rajgarh district of the state namely Narsinghgarh, Biora and Talaen have bore the brunt of this where repeated occurrence of communal riots have broken the back of Muslims in these places.
He revealed that complaints against this were made to the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan but the accused are still roaming scot-free. If the wrong done to Muslims were not made good till Ramzan then new line of action would be chalked out to seek justice, he added.
He charged that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, (RSS), and its umbrella organizations were behind the atrocities being committed on Muslims. The law enforcing agencies which do not have enough Muslims in their ranks are in the forefront in perpetuating atrocities on them.
Mufti Abd-ur-Razzaq demanded recruitment of Muslims in police forces in proportion to their population percentage.
He said to strengthen Indian democracy Muslims should be empowered.
Maulana Mohammad Ayub, Qazi of Narsinghgarh where communal riots broke out in April last, said properties of Muslims worth Rs. 3 crore was destroyed apart from killings of three persons.
It may be pointed out here that the protest conference was organized in the backdrop of the recent communal riots in various parts of the state and the apathy of the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh Government and its agencies’ failure in containing it and providing inadequate relief measures; Makkah Masjid bomb blast in Hyderabad, a day just before Tablighi Ijtema, to frighten and harass the participants of the religious meet and down-grading the importance and usefulness of Madarsas, the religious seminaries of Muslims, through the proposed formation of Central Madarsa Board.
In the conference apart from Ulemas from all over India representatives of various political parties except BJP and Congress were invited. ([email protected])