Our Correspondent / New Delhi
Indian Muslim community has strongly condemned the killing of 39 Indian workers by ISIS in Iraq. Prominent Muslim leaders of the community in a statement said that Islam and Muslims have nothing to do with this misguided group which is digging the roots of Islam in the name of Islam.
“Murder of the innocent Indian workers by the criminal ISIS is only a part of a long chain of the crimes of this outfit against the innocent Muslims and non-Muslims of Iraq, Syria and other countries” they said in a statement.
Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj has confirmed that bodies found in a mass grave near the Iraqi town of Mosul belonged to the kidnapped Indian workers and that DNA tests have confirmed that these are the same Indian workers who were kidnapped by ISIS criminals and kept captives since 2014.
“We wish to clarify that Islam and Muslims have nothing to do with this misguided group. It is digging the roots of Islam in the name of Islam. ISIS and Al-Qaeda and similar terrorist organizations are remnants of the misguided Kharijites whom a vast majority of Muslims over the past centuries has considered misguided and outside the pale of Islam”, they said .
Outfits like ISIS and Al-Qaeda etc have been created by powers like the US and Israel. These outfits from the outset are undoing Islam in the name of Islam. Their aim is to defame Islam to such an extent that people would shy from invoking the name of Islam and Islamic Shariat, it added.
“We urge Muslims of India, especially the youth, to keep a distance from such outfits and do not allow them to flourish in our areas,” they said.
The statement was signed by Maulana Jalaluddin Umri, President, Jamaat-e Islami Hind; Maulana Asghar Ali Imam Mahdi Salafi, President, Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e Hadees; Maulana Mufti Mukarram Ahmad, Shahi Imam & Khatib, Fatehpuri Jama Masjid Delhi; Asaduddin Owaisi, Chairman, Majlis Ittehadul Muslimin & Member of Parliament; Prof. Saifuddin Soz, former Union minister; Prof. Syed Tahir Mahmood, former Chairman, National Minorities Commission; Dr Manzoor Alam, Chairman, Institute of Objective Studies; Muhammad Adeeb, former Member of Parliament; Mufti Ataur Rahman Qasmi, Chairman, Shah Waliullah Institute; Dr Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas, member, All India Muslim Personal Law Board; Senior Advocate Mehmood Pracha; Anis Durrani, former chairman, Delhi Haj Committee; Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan, Chairman, Delhi Minorities Commission & former President, Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat and Dr Taslim Rahmani, President, Muslim Political Council of India and others .