Renowned activists Shabnam Hashmi returns National Minority Rights Award

New Delhi: Shabnam Hashmi, social activist, human rights campaigner returned the National Minority Rights in protest against the incidents of mob lynching of innocent minority community people.

Wife of renowned poet Gauhar Raza, Hashmi speaks during a news conference in New Delhi on Tuesday and returned the National Minority Rights Award to the national commission of minorities.

Hashmi who has conferred the award in 2008 for outstanding contribution in safeguarding and promoting the constitutional and legal rights of the minorities of India said the National Commission for Minorities, which confers the award, has “lost all its credibility” and hit out at the chairperson of the body over his “condemnable statements”.

 “I return the National Minority Rights Award, which has lost all its credibility, in protest against the consistent attacks and killings of the members of the minority communities and total inaction, apathy and tacit support to the violent gangs by the government,” Hashmi wrote in a letter to the commission.

It comes nearly two years after an episode where a number of authors, filmmakers and scientists had returned national awards in the wake of the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq in Uttar Pradesh’s Dadri over rumours of beef consumption.

 Earlier this month, Hashmi had stepped down as the trustee of ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy), an NGO founded by her.

The foreign funding license of the NGO was cancelled by the home ministry in December last year citing “undesirable activities against the public interest”.

PTI inputs