Villagers with their belongings move to relief camps as they leave their locality after violence at Chirang district in Assam July 24, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer

Members of the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland have been killing Muslims in India’s Assam district, at a time when Muslims are facing similar violent demises in neighboring Myanmar. Muslims of Bengali origin have been killed in rioting after a free-for-all in the four districts of western Assam. The Indian government has called out the army, issuing shoot-at-sight orders to control the ongoing violence.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online): Many are still missing and nearly 400,000 people are in makeshift camps after being displaced by the July riots.

Bodo separatist rebels have attacked Bengali Muslims over the past several years, along with other non-Bodo minorities since 1992. Their goal is to create a Bodo majority in their perceived ethnic homeland. Hundreds have been killed, the worst violence reported in 1996-97, when about a quarter of a million people were displaced.

The riots in India’s northeast follow the same pattern as violence against Muslim Rohingya in neighboring Myanmar.

Those fleeing the violence have beseeched rulers to let them stay in their adopted homelands. Sixty-three-year-old Rehana Bibi begged India’s ruling Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi to let her and others like her remain in refugee camps.

“We prefer to stay in these government-aided camps though we don’t get enough to eat or space to sleep. But that is better than constantly living with the threat of death,”Rehana told Gandhi.

Rehana was later joined by scores of Muslim women, from teenagers to the elderly, who pleaded with Gandhi not to be forced to go back to their native villages.

“Violence is still continuing in our area. We are getting to know of deaths and attacks. The government should please allow us to stay here until we feel it is safe to go back home,” said Sultana, another Muslim woman.

Many remain missing and nearly 400,000 people are in makeshift camps after being displaced by the July riots.

More than 2,500 Muslims were killed in ethnic riots that erupted during a six-year long campaign by Assamese groups (1979-1985). The worst carnage took place at Nellie in February 1983, when 1,600 Muslims were killed in two days of bloodbaths unleashed by Lalung tribesmen.

India’s situation bears parallels to Myanmar’s Rakhine province, where Rohingya Muslims, sometimes called “Bengalis” in that country, have suffered heavy casualties in fights with Buddhist Rakhines. Most of those killed have been Rohingyas, although some Rakhines are also among the dead.

“And like in Myanmar, so in Assam, nativist passion runs high against these Muslims. They are demonized and held responsible for all the woes faced by the indigenous peoples,” Samir Das, an author who has written on Assam says. “They are seen as encroachers on indigenous lands and resources.”

However, Rohingya say they are indigenous to Myanmar’s Rakhine province (previously Arakans), but many Burmese, including President Thein Sein, believe they are settlers from what is now the Chittagong region of Bangladesh, and say they should be taken out.

The Muslims of Bengali origin in Assam admit they originally hail from what was eastern Bengal and is now Bangladesh. Local Assamese and tribal groups, however, allege that illegal migration from Bangladesh continues unabated.

“People from what is now Bangladesh migrate to all over the world and they have been moving into Assam or other parts of northeast India since the days of the British. But what the locals are worried about are the growing numbers of the descendants of these Bengali Muslim settlers and their rising influence in the state’s agrarian economy and politics,” Assam political analyst Nani Gopal Mahanta says.

- via Catholic Online

سکولی بچوں میں پیٹ کے درد کی شکایت رہتی ہے

بھارت کے دارالحکومت دلی کے سکولوں میں اس برس نرسری درجے میں ہوئے داخلوں کے اعداد و شمار سے پتہ چلتا ہے کہ مسلمان بچوں کو بہت ہی کم تعداد میں داخلہ دیا گيا ہے۔

دلی کے جن تقریباً سو سکولوں نے اپنی ویب سائٹس پر داخلوں کی تفصیل شائع کی ہیں۔ ان سکولوں میں سے بیس نے تسلیم کیا ہے کہ انہوں نے ایک بھی مسلم بچے کو داخل نہیں کیا۔

اس میں سے سترہ سکولوں کا کہنا ہے کہ انہوں نے صرف ایک مسلم بچے کو داخلہ دیا ہے۔

ان اعداد و شمار سے حتمی طور پر تو یہ نہیں کہا جا سکتا کہ سکولوں میں مسلم بچوں کے داخلے سے متعلق کس حد تک امتیازی سلوک برتا جاتا ہے لیکن یہ ضرور ہے کہ انہیں تعلیمی سہولیات پوری طرح میسر نہیں ہیں۔

ایک سماجی کارکن عبدالخالق نے اپنے سروے کے ذریعے یہ اعداد و شمار جمع کیے ہیں۔

انہوں نے اس سلسلے میں دلی کی وزیراعلیٰ شیلا دکشت کو ایک خط لکھ کر یہ الزام لگایا ہے کہ دلی میں دانستہ طور پر مسلم بچوں کو اچھی تعلیم سے محروم کیا جا رہا ہے۔

’دارالحکومت میں بد قسمتی سے اچھی تعلیم نجی سکولوں میں ہے جہاں سے تعلیم یافتہ بچے دیگر کے مقابلے ملازمت حاصل کرنے یا پھر اچھے کالجوں میں داخلہ لینے میں کامیاب رہتے ہیں۔‘

انہوں نے لکھا ہے کہ اس صورتحال سے مسلمانوں میں کافی بے چینی ہے۔ انہوں نے زور دیا ہے کہ آبادی کی مناسبت سے مسلمان پندرہ فیصد ہیں جبکہ انہیں صرف صفر اعشاریہ پانچ فیصد سے کم ہی داخلے دیے گئے ہیں۔

انہوں نے ریاستی حکومت کو داخلے کے سلسلے میں بعض تجاویز پیش کی ہیں۔ ان کا مزید کہنا ہے کہ داخلے سے متعلق الگ الگ قواعد و ضوابط بھی اس کے لیے ذمہ دار ہیں۔

ان کا کہنا ہے کہ بہت سے سکولوں نے دانستہ طور پر اپنے داخلوں کی فہرست ویب سائٹ پر جاری نہیں کی ہے جبکہ اصولی طور پر یہ ضروری ہے۔

- via BBC Urdu

ISLANDS OF EXCLUSION: Residents of Haji Colony in Okhla, Delhi, face poor civic conditions and air pollution. This densely populated area, like some others, is predominantly Muslim. Photo: V. Sudershan

Finding a home to rent in India’s national capital is an arduous task for anyone – but, an investigation by The Hindu has found, almost impossible for citizens who happen to be Muslim. Homeowners and property dealers contacted by reporters often firmed up deals, only to be disqualified as soon as they revealed their religion.

Housing apartheid was at its worst in New Delhi’s most affluent and educated neighbourhoods: New Friends Colony, Vasant Kunj, Jangpura and Rohini. By contrast, in areas such as Mukherjee Nagar, Karol Bagh, Janakpuri and Ashok Vihar the responses were mixed.

In one case, a property agent representing a homeowner in New Friends Colony flatly told The Hindu‘s reporters, “The landlords want only Indians, not Muslims.”

Told that the applicant was an Indian, the reporter was told not to push matters further. “Another Muslim,” said Radha of Gulshan properties in New Friends Colony, “wanted to take the flat on rent but he was also refused by the owners. Even though it suits your budget and needs, there is no point in showing you the flat. The flat has been vacant for a long time but they will not give it to a Muslim.”

Deepak Sharma of Balaji Properties in Rohini Sector-8, contacted by The Hindu‘s reporters, who posed as a young Muslim married couple, said that residents of mainly-Hindu Rohini “avoid renting their flats to Muslims here. I am sorry but you will not be able to get a house in this locality.” Ironically enough, Mr. Sharma’s office proudly displayed a photograph bearing icons of all religions, in perfect harmony.

For single women, things are even worse. When a reporter posed as a single mother looking for a house in West Delhi’s Janakpuri, an agent of Sharma properties was initially sympathetic. “You don’t have a husband?” said a property dealer, adding in a conciliatory tone “Ok, come tomorrow and I will find you a house.”

This changed as soon as she revealed that she is a Muslim who eats non-vegetarian food. “It could get a little difficult then,” he said, “I will call you back after speaking to the owner.”

By contrast, there were considerable options for a female student looking for accommodation in Delhi’s North Campus with brokers even looking out for the safety of their clients. “There is an option for a one-bedroom apartment but it won’t suit a girl since the entry is from the back of the house,” property dealer Varun Kumar said. Men looking for accommodation in the area say that single girls are preferred as tenants since they can be reined in with threats of complaints to their parents.

Property dealers seemed to operate an informal network of religious segregation, often pointing The Hindu‘s reporters to supposedly Muslim-appropriate neighbourhoods. More often that not, they were told to look for houses in the fringes of posh colonies. Property dealers in Rohini suggested Rithala, one in Jangpura proposed Bhogal, famous for its Kashmiri population and Afghanistani refugees, a broker in New Friends Colony suggested Sukhdeo Vihar and Jasola both of which are close to another Muslim ‘ghetto’ Jamia Nagar, and one in Vasant Kunj suggested Munirka and Kishangadh.

Neighbourhoods like these appear to be emerging as enclaves for the growing Muslim middle class in Delhi, which despite its education and economic achievements is denied access to neighbourhoods preferred by Hindus from similar backgrounds.

On the travails of finding a house, Prof. Rizwan Qaisar, an academician at Jamia Millia Islamia, said while looking for a house in Saket and Munirka DDA Flats he came across instances where his name mattered a lot. “Every thing was fine till I revealed my name. After facing ‘no’ from several property dealers, I had to finally shift to Noor Nagar in Jamia Nagar.” “Several social groups face discrimination in housing but for Muslims the edge is sharper,” Mr. Qaisar said.

Senior lawyer Ashok Agarwal said a solution to the problem does not lie in the legal sphere. “First of all, practically it is very difficult to prove the existence of this malaise,” he said, adding, “the government cannot regulate private housing.”

Elsewhere in the region, countries have taken concerted action to end similar housing apartheid. Singapore, for example, introduced a system of mandatory quotas in public housing to better integrate its once-polarised ethnic-Malay, Chinese and Indian communities.

Interestingly, one property dealer said, Dalits sometimes faced similar problems — but managed to avoid them since their names often did not immediately disclose their caste. “Dalits face some problems when the owner is typically a practicing upper caste Hindu or Jain,” the dealer said. Not every neighbourhood is exclusionary — perhaps a sign of hope that change is possible in the city. There are those who are honest about not caring where in the world one comes from.

- via The Hindu

Rehan Ansari.

Malegaon: The second edition of the Urdu Book on Hemant Karkare, slain ATS Maharashtra Chief “The Great Hemant Karkare” was released on Friday by the All India President of Jamitul Ulema hind, Maulana Arshad Madni in Malegaon. Mohammed Javed Shaikh, a reporter in Rashtriya Sahara Urdu, Mumbai edition is the author of the book.

The book contains Shaikh’s reporting experience of 26/11 Mumbai attack and Malegaon blast and his meetings with Hemant Karakare. Appreciating the effort of Mohammed Javed sheikh, Arshad Madni said, “It’s a good work and I acclaim his efforts.” He also said, “It’s Hemant Karkare, who exposed the Saffron Terror group and brought them in front of the world because of which these accused are released on bail.”

Javed Shaikh said, “ Karkare sir told me that he was still working on the Malegaon blast 2008 and had got enough evidence of the involvement of Hindu terror outfits involvement.”

Shaikh further quoted Karkare saying that, “if I found the other accused the blast are innocents I will myself file an affidavit in the court for their release.” Shaikh also appreciated the zeal of Maleagon people who fought for the justice for the wrongly arrested youths in the Malegaon bomb blast.

Second edition of book on Hemant Karkare was released in Malegaon | TwoCircles.net

The conclusion by the special investigation team (SIT) probing the 2004 killings prompted the Gujarat High Court to order a fresh complaint against the accused police officers for the murder under Section 302 that covers the death penalty.

The court-appointed SIT, headed by police officer R.R. Verma, said that Jahan, a 19-year-old girl from Mumbai, Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed earlier than the shootout date of June 15, 2004.

They were shot dead on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in a private car. Police claimed that they were linked to the Lashkar-e Taiba terror outfit and were in the city to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

A total of 21 policemen, including four Indian Police Service (IPS) officers – then joint commissioner P.P. Pande, suspended deputy inspector general D.G. Vanzara, then assistant commissioner G.L. Singhal and assistant commissioner N.K. Amin – were involved in the staged shootout.

The court didn’t divulge details of the SIT report because it would prejudice and hamper further investigations.

The court is to decide now on which agency will conduct further probe into the case. It sought suggestions from petitioners and the state government on whether to entrust the job to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or the National Investigation Agency (NIA)

“The probe agency needs to find out who played the key role in the encounter… what was the motive and what was the actual time of the death of the four people,” the court said.

The SIT report gave relief to Jahan’s family who called it a “victory because it washed away the terror blot police had stamped on them”.

“She was innocent when she was alive, she was innocent when her body was brought to us. It is our victory,” her uncle Rauf Lala told reporters, outside the court.

Her mother Shamima Kausar thanked the court but said the justice was still awaited till the culprits were punished.

“They should be hanged. They have ruined our lives. They killed my innocent daughter,” a choking Kausar told reporters.

Human rights activists and lawyers also hailed the SIT conclusion and sought public apology from police and the media for tarnishing the image of the family and the young girl with a terror tag.

“They made their life hell. The family stands vindicated. They killed and tarnished the image of a young girl and her family. They should apologise publicly,” lawyer-activist Vrinda Grover shouted outside the court.

In Alappuzha,Kerala, Gopinathan Pillai, the father of Pranesh Kumar Pillai alias Javed Shaikh, said he was a much relieved man with the SIT report saying the shootout was not genuine.

Gopinathan Pillai had sought an inquiry by a SIT.

“I am a much relieved person because with this none will accuse me as the father of a terrorist,” Pillai told the media.

Ishrat encounter fake, says SIT; Court orders fresh FIR | TwoCircles.net

LAST WEEK, that inveterate hate-monger Praveen Togadia made an impassioned plea for a new Indian Constitution that allows for ‘anyone who converts Hindus to be beheaded’. He went on to assert that ‘we Hindus should include Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains because their line of thinking is no different from Hindus, except for a few small habits’. Is this an isolated fundamentalist rant or the indication of a trend towards an increase in the forces of hatred and division in our society? The preamble to the Constitution is the most noble advertisement of our commitment to secular humanism. It spells out our resolve to be a humane society that will secure justice, liberty, equality for its citizens and promote fraternity. Of these cherished values, the greatest and the most neglected is fraternity, perhaps because it is least amenable to political action. As a wise man once said, the state can prevent me from coveting my neighbour’s property but it cannot oblige me, by law, to love my neighbour. And yet, the success of our pursuit to be a strong, united and civilised country ultimately depends on whether we love one another as brothers. Our prescient Constitution-makers, knowing the importance, underlined fraternity as a key ingredient for building a vibrant democracy.

We have failed dismally in this endeavour. The country today is the hotbed of a million mutinies. Our prime minister has spoken of terrorism as the biggest threat to the nation. Others believe that the long shadow of Maoists over the heartland is our Achilles’ heel. However, there is another insidious, omnipresent and all-consuming poison that is eating into the vitals of the nation — religious prejudice and intolerance. When a bomb explodes and kills innocents, cold fear grips the Muslim community. It knows, from bitter experience, that although terrorism claims affinity to a host of faiths and ideologies, the invariable reaction to a terrorist act is to blame it on an Islamic terrorist group. The grim reality is that only Muslims are made to feel that they have to answer for the perverted deeds of their co-religionists, whereas an equally heinous crime by Norwegian Anders Breivik is rationalised as a case of individual madness that has nothing to do with Christian fundamentalism. Similarly, the terrorist acts of the rightwing Hindu extremists are seen as an aberration. The fact that so-called Islamic terrorism claims many more Muslim victims than others is studiously ignored because it vitiates a neat argument.

The bogus perception of Islam has unfortunately seeped into the law enforcement apparatus. Time and again, the nation is confronted with the unacceptable injustice perpetrated on members of the minority community in the guise of fighting terrorism. After the 2006 Malegaon blasts, 115 Muslims were picked up and all, barring nine, were released after years of incarceration and torture. These nine innocents remained behind bars until last week, despite Swami Asimananda’s confession that it was the handiwork of Hindu extremists. Earlier this year, 63 Muslims who had languished in jail for nine years for alleged involvement in the Godhra train massacre of 2002 were released for want of evidence. The Godhra verdict itself threw up a major paradox. The court on the one hand adjudged that this horrific incident was the result of a criminal conspiracy and on the other came out with the astonishing contradictory ruling letting off the main conspirators who were allegedly instrumental in mobilising the mob on that fateful day. The judge apparently does not subscribe to the dictum that a case is only as strong as its weakest link. Full of loose ends and imponderables, the judgment has done little to inspire confidence and finally clear the air.

In July 2011, 12 Muslim youth, who were implicated for the Haren Pandya murder, were set free after five years as there was no evidence against them. More recently, 21 Muslims who had been implicated for the Mecca Masjid blasts of 2008 were released because they were innocent. Not surprisingly the advocate commissioner who had been appointed by the State Minorities Commission to investigate allegations of police abuse not only confirmed torture but the report also added that the detainees believed that they had been picked up and tortured ‘because they belong to a particular community’. What the years of torture, unfair defamation and separation from their families have done to these broken spirits is impossible to express in words. So acute is the discrimination that Muslims wonder whether they have equal citizenship rights under the law. The most tragic irony is that scores of innocents are behind bars because of their religious affiliations, whereas there are thousands of murderers — the perpetrators of the Sikh killings of 1984, the Mumbai blasts of 1992, the subsequent Mumbai pogrom of 1993, the Godhra train massacre of 2002 and the subsequent Gujarat riots — who are roaming free.

FORMER SUPREME Court judge Markandey Katju recently berated the media for accentuating the false perception about Muslims. He is convinced that the media often twists facts and creates the impression that Muslims are terrorists. Observers have noted that the media is muted and guarded in exposing the atrocities committed by other rightwing extremists. It is significant that the mainstream media ignored the recent revelations by a special director of the intelligence bureau at the conference of the state police chiefs that Hindu extremists have either been suspected or are under investigation in 16 incidents of bomb blasts, which makes Hindutva terror a far bigger phenomenon than previously envisaged. The media, however, continues to portray the Muslim as the archetypal terrorist. Fuelled by prejudice and intolerance, our public discourse has degenerated to the lowest possible level. The most inflammatory and divisive rhetoric has become commonplace. We are all aware of the scurrilous remarks about Muslims made by Subramanian Swamy, who has called for disenfranchisement of Muslims if they did not proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. Even the once respected Justice VR Krishna Iyer made this scandalous observation: ‘I do suspect their loyalty. If every Muslim in India feels India to be his motherland and wants to defend it, the police will easily get information about the secret manoeuvres of hostile Muslim elements.’ Can hate and prejudice get more absurd and hurtful than this? Today, the woes of the ordinary Muslim seem neverending. Living as he is on the margins of society, discriminated against in education and the job market, even when looking for accommodation, he is also burdened with the awful stigma of being in tacit collusion with terrorists.

Tehelka – India’s Independent Weekly News Magazine

The apex court bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice R.P. Desai was told that then deputy inspector general of police “Geetha Johri did a great and honest investigation, gathered good evidence to make a prima facie case against top officers of Gujarat police”.

Appearing for Shah, senior counsel Ram Jethmalani answered in the negative to the court’s query if he believed that Sohrabuddin shootout was “genuine”.

The court asked: “It is not your case that Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter was genuine.”

Shah is opposing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) plea challenging the Gujarat High Court order of Oct 29, 2010, granting him bail in the case.

Jethmalani told the court that the staged shootout Sohrabuddin Sheikh and the subsequent disappearance of his wife Kausar Bi was unlawful. “It is bad in law. It is contrary to law. But it was done to get rid of a terrorist,” the senior counsel told the court.

Court said that “then every murderer is a terrorist”. Jethmalani said that a “terrorist is not just one who comes from across the border but even one who carries weapon and kills people”.

Gujarat’s Additional Advocate General Tushar Mehta told the court that Sohrabuddin Sheikh was once booked under the anti-terror law for possessing 25 AK-47 guns and 200 grenades. He told the court that he would furnish the details in the next hearing.

In an attempt to rebut the CBI’s charge that Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed for extortion, Jethmalani said: “Fake encounter is a fake encounter. But the motive was not extortion but to get rid of a hated criminal.”

Jethmalani punched holes in the CBI charge sheet which he said was politically coloured.

He referred to the portion which said that inaction of the state government on 200 complaints alleging extortion against Amit Shah had demoralised witnesses and they were not forthcoming.

Justice Alam told CBI’s counsel Additional Solicitor General Vivek Tankha: “You are supposed to be a finest investigating agency. You will have to meet (reply) to these points.”

Jethmalani assailed the Jan 12, 2010 judgment of the apex court by which investigation in case was handed over to the CBI.

The senior counsel said that before ordering the CBI probe the court should have heard both Shah and Johri who were also before the court in the case.

Justice Alam said that in the hearing on the plea of the victim’s family members seeking CBI probe there was a pattern.

“There was a pattern. First, there was complete denial and the initial stand was that the encounter was genuine. As the evidence surfaced, there was an attempt to catch hold of the foot soldiers and middlemen and put a cap on the case.”

“The court felt at that point of time that there was an attempt to cap the investigation,” Justice Alam said.

Jethmalani intervened to say that “this kind of approach was possible, probable and the court’s anxiety was justified”.

Strong proof against 13 cops in Sohrabuddin killing: Shah | TwoCircles.net

A group of about 30 Muslims from Malegaon comprising relatives, close friends, guarantors and lawyers of the seven accused are staying at Jama Masjid Ahle Hadees in Central Mumbai since Monday. Led by the Kul Jamaati Tanzeem leaders, they are in Mumbai waiting for the release of the accused from jail. The accused were granted bail by the Special MCOCA Court on November 05 and are expected to be released any moment. As the procedure for checking and verifying the bail documents is taking time longer than expected, the trustees of the Jama Masjid Ahl-e-Hadees are leaving no stone unturned to provide them relief and comfort. At the same time, their extended stay in the mosque has given birth to some extraordinary and rare scenes.

“While people from other Muslim sects find it comfortable to offer prayers in different mosques belonging to different sects, it is normally a tradition that prayers are led and religious discourses are delivered by the clerics from the same sect to which the mosque belongs. However, it is heartening to see the way the trustees of the Jama Masjid Ahl-e-Hadees are offering their services to the fellow brothers from Malegaon”, Imtiyaz Khaleel, a Mumbai-based documentary film producer says while speaking to ummid.com.

“They are not only extending remarkable hospitality to provide them utmost comfort, but going beyond the prevalent traditions are also requesting the Kul Jamaati Tanzeem leaders to deliver the religious discourses in the mosque”, he adds.

Kul Jamaat Tanzeem which comprises clerics from all Muslim sects was formed immediately after the 2006 Malegaon blast. Their campaign which began in 2006 to seek justice for the local youth arrested in the case and arrest of the actual perpetrators is perhaps one of the longest in the history of Malegaon.

Interestingly, the immediate motive behind the formation of the Kul Jamaati Tanzeem was to reject the investigation theory floated after the 2006 Malegaon blast suggesting that the sectarian differences among the Muslims could be the reason behind the blast.

The series of blasts that had rocked Malegaon on September 08, 2006 was conspired ahead of Shab-e-Barat, a Muslim festival when thousands of people were busy offering Friday prayers at the Hamidia Masjid in Malegaon Qabristan. Another blast had occurred at nearby Mushawerat Chowk few minutes later. 37 people were killed and more than 300 were injured in the blasts, most of them being children – all Muslims. Investigations were of the view that the Muslims who are against celebrating Shab-e-Barat were behind the attack.

“It was a deliberate and cleverly hatched theory to nab the Muslim youth and save the real perpetrators of a clear attack on a Muslim mosque”, Maulana Abdul Hameed Azhari, one of the founders and front leader of the Kul Jamaati Tanzeem says.

The leaders by forming the Kul Jamaati Tanzeem not only shattered to pieces the investigation theory but also provided the country a model to fight and stand against injustice. Incidentally, efforts were also on ever since the formation of this unique group to crumble its extraordinary unity. But the group not only kept its rank and file intact but also became stronger with every passing day.

“Ittehad zindagi hai aur Inteshar maut“, another Kul Jamaati Tanzeem leader Sufi Ghulam Rasool Qadri would exhort his colleagues to make them realise the importance of unity. He adds that what is seen in the Mumbai mosque in the last three days is a glimpse and result of their efforts taken in last five years.

“Differences among Muslims are a fact. But it does not mean that we bomb each other. No way. This is what we wanted to show to the world. And, also to show very clearly that when time demands we are one and united despite our differences and can pray under one roof and in same mosque”, he says.

Interestingly, impressed by the strong show of unity by the Kul Jamaati Tanzeem leaders of Malegaon, community leaders from Mumbai are contemplating the idea of experiencing the same in other parts of the state and the country.

“Today, the Kul Jamaati Tanzeem leaders, their unity and struggle for justice have become a model for the entire country. We would definitely like to see this experience emulated in other parts”, Ameer Jamat-e-Islami Hind Maharashtra Nazar Mohammad Mud’oo says after meeting the Muslim leaders of Malegaon yesterday at Jama Masjid Ahl-e-Hadees, Mominpura in Mumbai. 

Strong show of unity by Muslims ahead of Malegaon youth’s release | ummid.com

On Tuesday a group of around 100 Muslim residents of Ulhasnagar sat on a dharna at Azad Maidan, demanding at least two acres of land for the burial ground. Some of the protesters’ representatives at a press conference threatened that if the government didn’t give them a burial place within 15 days, they would take their dead to the gates of Mantralaya and, on the way the ambulances carrying the bodies would also stop at Matoshree, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s residence at Bandra.
“The UMC proposed the burial site on September 17, but city mayor Rajshri Chaudhry who is wife of Shiv Sena’s Ulhasnagar president Rajendra Chaudhry, is stonewalling it. Our protest is against both the Sena and the Congress-led state government for not heeding our plea,” said Murtaza M Bachchan Shaikh of Ahle Sunnat Muslim Jamat Trust, the organization fighting for the kabrasthan in the township.

Muslims fight for burial ground in Ulhasnagar – The Times of India