AMN / New Delhi
Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) has expressed deep anguish over the growing incidents of lynching and hate crimes all over the country. It is planning to meet the President of India along with different faith leaders and will present a joint-memorandum to him over the issue.
Addressing a press conference here today, JIH Secretary General, Muhammad Salim Engineer said: “we are approaching different faith leaders for meeting with highest constitutional authority of the country (President of India) over lynching incidents and hate crimes.” He continued, “the latest incidents being the gruesome killing of Rakhbar Khan of Alwar (Rajasthan) and the public lynching of Mohammed Azam a Hyderabad techie in Bidar (Karnataka). The Bidar incident happened in full public view and the presence of police who could not save Azam’s life. Other cases of hate crimes also continue unabated with a recent report that the beard of a Muslim youth was deliberately shaved and thrashed by miscreants in Gurugram (Haryana).
Since the last four years hate crimes and lynching against Muslims and Dalits have increased a lot. Anti-social and criminal elements are becoming daring and emboldened because no serious action has been taken against them and this is creating fear in the common citizens. In fact the provocative language of some lawmakers of the ruling party regarding cow protection and the felicitation of those accused of lynching at the hands of Union Ministers is adding fuel to fire.”
The Secretary General has demanded that the Central government and the state governments must put an end to such incidents of lawlessness and act seriously in maintaining law and order as well as communal harmony in the country which is the basic duty of any government.
Jamaat expresses concern over exclusion of 4 million people in final draft NRC
Expressing deep concern over the exclusion of four million people from the citizenship of India in the final draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, Vice President of Jamaat, Mr. Nusrat Ali said, “thus far the NRC has held about 40 lakh people (more than 10% of the state population) of the 3.3 crore applications to be invalid and hence disqualified to be bona fide citizens of India.
According to the Assam Accord signed in 1985, anyone who entered the state after 24 March 1971 is considered an illegal resident. For acceptance into the NRC the onus of proof (to prove citizenship) was the responsibility of the applicant. But genuine citizens, who are impoverished and could not maintain proper records because of their homes being exposed to the vagaries of nature, are impacted and now face the brunt of being branded as foreigners. Most of those who could not make it into the NRC were due to minor inaccuracies in their documents.”