Congress fails to protect Muslims in its own states
Monday, 29 October 2007
New Delhi, October 29: Political parties may be shedding crocodile tears over the plight of Muslims in India, but they have done little to address the suffering of the community.
There are shocking reports of alleged excesses against the community members in Congress-governed states, let alone those ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, where anti-minority statute is a reality. Congress is allegedly doing precisely what the state BJP government did in Gujarat, post-Godhra carnage in 2002.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s warning not to ‘label’ minority communities in India hasn’t been of much help. Despite his admonition against such ‘labelling’ that fans communal sentiments, he, too, like former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, is unsure of his party’s political offensive in states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Assam.
It seems Congress hasn’t got enough indication of what has been happening in these states, particularly Andhra Pradesh, where a large number of cases of Muslims allegedly being tortured, beaten up and discriminated against are surfacing in human rights records. With parliamentary polls not far, it could become tough for Congress, which is known for using Muslims as a mere ‘vote bank’.
Muslims in these states are often being harassed on the charge of conniving with ‘terrorists’. Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have been largely holding Muslim youths responsible for the spate of terror incidents. Under their chief ministers, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and Vilasrao Deshmukh, the states are allegedly victimising the minority community in the name of combating terror.
Akin to BJP’s Gujarat, where the state government had allowed ‘state-sponsored excesses’ on Muslims, the Congress-ruled states, particularly Andhra Pradesh, is doing something similar, if not legitimately encouraging a ‘communal bloodbath’ for political gains. Scores of Muslim youth are allegedly missing without any legal trace in Andhra Pradesh.
Even women are reportedly being picked up and questioned by state’s police department for what Reddy’s administration sees as an action against those supporting radical views. There is covert surveillance on predominant Muslim localities in Hyderabad, and other small towns of the state.
In Maharashtra, it is the same story, where by refusing to implement Srikrishna Commission report on December 1992 and January 1993 communal riots, Congress has antagonised Muslims who till date have been struggling to seek justice. The families of 1,500 people killed, 1,829 injured and 165 missing in the gruesome riots so far have been denied a fair deal. Instead, they are being hounded for their alleged links with terror groups.
In Assam, where there is unabated infiltration from Bangladesh, the situation is equally alarming. But it is Andhra Pradesh, that has fared terribly on Congress party’s report card. There are prolonged detentions of Muslim youths in college campuses, streets and there are strip searches being done publicly in residential localities.
Analysts and human rights activists suggest that what has been happening in the name of combating global terror in London or Washington, is now happening in the state. Ever since the bomb blasts of August 25, 2007 that killed scores in Hyderabad, a large number of abductions and illegal detention of Muslim youths has reportedly been taking place.
The state's Minorities Commission, in its report, points out that hundreds from the Muslim community living in the state have been questioned and interrogated, kept under surveillance, even beaten up and mercilessly tortured. Those who are being rounded up, have no criminal background and are as blameless as anybody with no evidence in the court of law.
There is an auto-rickshaw driver, a medical student, even a software engineer and an embroiderer who may not have been involved in the blasts, but still they are being made to feel and look like ‘terrorists’. None of them has criminal record, but they have been kept under illegal confinement, says the commission. -Agencies
The Siasat Daily, 2004.
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India's Congress Party fails to protect Muslims in its own states
