Mangaluru, Jan 23: Over a thousand demonstrators took part in the massive demonstration organised by the Dakshina Kannada unit of Popular Front of India in front of the deputy commissioner’s office here on Friday, urging justice and harmony in view of the communalism, violence and hate-crimes made by Sangh Parivar groups in the coastal district.
Presiding over the protest meet named as ‘Samarasyakkagi Janaandolana’ (people’s movement for harmony), PFI district president A M Ataullah, said that the people’s movement was the need of the hour as several Muslims were being targeted by Sangh Parivar groups who instigated communal clashes.
He said that under the pretext of Hindu Hrudaya Sangama in Puttur, common people belonging to Hindu community were provoked by the Sangh Parivar leaders to spread violence aimed at Muslims. As a result, the masjid in Karaya and two others were attacked by trouble-mongers soon after the programme. Even in the Ulaibettu clashes that took place last month, it was a group of Sangh Parivar activists who provoked the local youth to oppose them by driving over a newly-laid road and pelting stones at few shops owned by Muslims. If the police had taken immediate action, the untoward incidents that occurred as a result could have been prevented, he said, adding that the Muslim community was hurt by the police discrimination against the culprits in the recent Ulaibettu and Uppinangady clashes.
He held the district administration and the state government primarily responsible in the Uppinangady rioting for having allowed an accused in a hate-speech case such as VHP leader Pravin Togadia, to make a public speech in the district.
Demanding justice for the injustice suffered by Muslim families in the Ulaibettu clashes, Mr Ataullah urged that the innocent Muslim youth jailed in the wake of the clashes should be released.
Uppinangady Central Jumma Masjid president Mustafa Kempi said that the incident of stone-pelting and attack on masjids in Uppinangady had been pre-planned, and the police were witnesses to this. The attack on Karaya masjid was not made as an act of retaliation as claimed by Sangh Parivar leaders. What shattered on that fateful day were not windows of the masjid, but innocent hearts which are unable to be rebuilt by the Congress government, he said, control over such communal rioting was essential by both the state and central government.
In a message to members of the Hindu community who wished communal hatred, he said that no peace-loving Muslim in the district would attempt to attack temples or Hindu religious centres.
Vice-president of Muslim Central Committee, Mangaluru Hameed Kandak questioned the intention and gains behind attacks by members of Sangh Parivar on the Muslim community, and appealed to the latter to remain unruffled by the attacks. One should not retaliate to these incidents, as preached by holy Prophet, he told the demonstrators.
Former mayor and president of Samyukta Jamaat, Mangaluru K Ashraf complained that there were dual laws for incidents revolving around Ulaibettu and Uppinangady clashes. In Ulaibettu clashes, several youth were jailed within 24 hours of the incident by the police, whereas they could not arrest even one culprit in the Uppinangady rioting that took place in the wake of Hindu Hrudaya Sangama held in Puttur.
PFI state committee member Shafi Bellare, SDPI state leader Ilyas Mohammed Thumbe, All India Imams Council district president Jaffer Saadiq Faizi also spoke in the demonstration.
PFI Belthangady taluk president Haider Neersal, state committee member Iqbal Nandarabettu, SDPI district president Nawaz Ullal, district committee vice-president M Koosappa, Atoor Ibrahim Thangal, Mohammed Ashraf and several others were present on the occasion.
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