By IANS,
Lucknow : After hosting at her home several leading Muslim clerics who last week expressed their protest against the India-US nuclear deal, Chief Minister Mayawati is likely to come up shortly with welfare measures for the community.
Pension scheme for madrassa teachers, setting up of an Urdu-Persian university in the state capital and an increase in the funds of the Urdu Academy are some of the measures likely to be announced, official sources said.
“We requested the chief minister to establish another university on the lines of the Aligarh Muslim University in a district having a majority Muslim population. Our request to constitute a separate Muslim Development Board was instantly agreed by her and she issued directions to establish a separate cell in the UP Advisory Council,” Sunni cleric Maulana Khalid Rashid Firangimaheli told IANS.
Firangimaheli is the Naib Imam of Aishbagh Idgah and member of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board.
BSP Rajya Sabha member Satish Mishra, who heads the state advisory council, along with state PWD minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui organised a couple of meetings with Shia and Sunni clerics this week in a bid to ascertain and address their problems.
Some common demands of Shia and Sunni clerics include provisions for giving a share to the daughter in the agricultural land belonging to the father, establishment of Urdu-Persian university, besides matters related to Muslim Personal Law Board.
“We are hopeful that our demands will be rightly addressed by the chief minister at the earliest,” says Shia cleric Kalbe Jawwad.