AMN / Kannur (Kerala)
Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JUH) led by Maulana Arshad Madani on Sunday handed over keys of 40 newly constructed houses to the Kerala’s flood-hit victims- belonging different faiths- at a especially ceremony here. The victims were overwhelmed by the gesture and expressed their gratitude to the Jamiat leadership.
They said many people had come and made empty promises but only JUH has fulfilled the promise. One old Christian widow Sarojni expressed her gratitude by saying that the Almighty God keeps Madani Sb( Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind president Maulana Syed Arshad Madani) under His protection who felt the pain and sufferings of the flood-victims.
Sarojni was all praise of the Jamiat chief saying no other organization or people came to help them while all who came here just made hollow promises. The southern coastal state of Kerala was severely hit by the worst flood of the century in August 2018 last year. The nature’s fury had wreaked havoc in many parts of the state rendering thousands of families homeless and penniless. While the tale of Sarojni is also heartrending. She has only one son who is a diabetic and lost his both legs due to this and his kidneys also damaged. This old lady is a daily-wager who is not only feeding his ailing son but also getting his treatment. The flood heaped on miseries as her home was swept away by the furious water of flood. There were hundreds of people who lost everything in the devastating floods but they were forgotten by the people shortly.
However, Jamiat did not let down them which has been doing relief and rehabilitation work on a large scale in the state. There were many victims who did not have money to re-build their homes which were completely wiped out and damaged by the raging floods. When JUH has come to know this situation, it launched a construction project under the supervision of Jamiat Chief Maulana Arshad Madani. Jamiat has done a survey of the devastation before launching the construction work. Accordingly on the basis of the survey report, Jamiat began the construction of 66 houses in the first phase and out of which 40 houses have been ready to live. It has already repaired 90 damaged houses. It needs to mention here that the homes were constructed in accordance with the norms and standards of Kerala. Because of this, the cost of construction has been increased considerably. Rs 4 to 4.5 lakh were spent on the construction of single house while repairing cost was Rs 90,000 to 1 lakh per house.
For handing over the keys of newly built houses, a grand function was organized at Babel Greens Convention Centre in Payyambalam in Kannur district which was attended by prominent social, religious leaders, activists and families of flood victims. Addressing the function, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind chief Maulana Arshad Madani, who presented the keys to flood victims, said Jamiat has been serving the people irrespective of their religion and belief since its inception.
On the occasion, he also highlighted the aims and objects of the JUH insisting that the Jamiat has nothing do with the politics particularly with the electoral politics ( of assembly and parliament).He recalled that for more than 150 year, this organization of religious leaders had made sacrifices and struggled for the freedom of the country. After the country got independence, Jamiat leadership had taken a conscious decision of not joining politics; he said and added that it has decided doing religious work for the Muslim community and social work for all people irrespective of their faith.
Maulana Arshad Madani said whenever and wherever any natural calamity befell, Jamiat gets there to help the people irrespective of their faith. “We try to help the needy and distressed people with our best of the capabilities and means without distinguishing between Hindu, Muslim or Christian and it is the hallmark of Jamiat.” He cited the examples of Assam, Kashmir and Bihar floods where Jamiat had helped the affected people with its full might. He also underlined the fact the miseries come not only by the natural calamity but also by human beings. Referring to many man-made disasters, he recalled how the Bodo tribal attacked the non-Bodo people in Assam rendering more than 3.5lakh people both Muslims and Hindus as homeless. He said Jamiat had built 500 houses for these affected people without any religious consideration. He said Jamiat is known by its social and welfare activities which has more than 10 million members across the country and they become restless whenever any tragedy and disaster befall on the people. On such occasions, NGOs also become active and make a beeline of assurances to the affected people who grab the headlines in newspapers but after initial fervor their enthusiasm proves short-lived as nobody bothered to know the state of the victims. This is what happened with the victims of Muzaffarnagar riots victims and Kerala flood victims as many people and organizations initially came forward assuring help to them but started ignoring afterward. However, Jamiat did not let down them and has been serving them with its strength, Maulana Arshad Madani said.
Throwing light on recent activities of Jamiat, Maulana Arshad Madani also referred to issue of NRC in Assam. Because of Jamiat’s successful legal battle, the Supreme Court has provided a big relief to the thousands of women including a large number of Hindu women whose names were left out in the final draft of NRC and their citizenship was under peril.
Touching the issue of terror cases, Maulana Arshad Madani said the Jamiat has been fighting legal battle for hundreds of Muslim youths who have been falsely implicated in terror cases as most of them got acquitted by the courts. He also reiterated that Islam does not permit killing of an innocent person and whoever does this crime is not a human being but a Satan.
