(Pervez Bari) The Social Democratic Party of India, (SDPI), has expressed its deep concern, anguish and dismay over the breakout of communal violence in Assam and Uttar Pradesh. It has demanded that ruling political leadership in both the states should come out of their reverie and control the situation immediately where Muslims are at the receiving end in each state.
The SDPI demanded that Indian National Congress should remove the inefficient Chief Minister of Assam and also demanded the Central government to hand over the entire affected areas in Assam to the military till complete rehabilitation is ensured and a judicial probe into the build-up and fallout of the violence.
Mr. E. Abubacker, the national president of SDPI, in a statement stated that if the state governments remained moot spectator then the fire may spread too many parts of country. It is a sad commentary that Congress governments at the Centre and in Assam which claim to be saviours of the Muslim community appear to be no different from the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP), and Shiv Sena both known always for their anti-Muslim stance.
Mr. Abubacker said that the lives and property of thousands of poor Muslim families belonging to the labour class in the Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Golaghat, Sivasagar, Jorhat districts of Assam are at stake with continuous torture meted out to them by various organizations, accusing them baselessly to be illegal Bangladeshi migrants. Muslims in this region are being harassed and forcible expulsion of Muslims is happening in the districts of Upper Assam. The ruling Congress doesn’t seem to take deterrent action on serious communal violence against minority Muslims in Assam, he added.
He blamed the Assam and Central Government, coincidently both ruled by Congress, for the violence in Assam that took the lives of many innocent and poor. He demanded for the strict punishment to the arsonist and vandals, so far unchecked.
Mr. Abubacker urged the Assam Governor to take steps to ensure that violence stops, security is given to all displaced by the violence so that they may return to their homes forthwith. He has also demanded adequate reparation for the lives lost and homes and other properties destroyed.
He expressed apprehension on the use of word “infiltrators” for the Muslim settlers whose status has been recognized in the Assam accord. He stressed the need for dialogue between Bodos and Muslims for peaceful co-existence. The dialogue must begin forthwith between the majority Bodo villages and the Muslim settlers for integrated rehabilitation.
It is just a motivated propaganda that seeks to justify the violence against the minority community in the name of illegal migration from Bangladesh. This is a total fabrication since the large majority of people in these areas are Indian citizens who have been living in the area for decades having been displaced from their own areas due to the erosion of their land by the Brahmaputra and other rivers, the statement added.
Meanwhile, on the Uttar Pradesh front, Mr. Abubacker moaned that Samajwadi Party, (SP), which regained power on the basis of massive Muslim support, is failing in its duty to protect effectively the lives and properties of the largest minority community in the state. In the first hundred days rule of Akhilesh Yadav, three places Kosikalan (Mathura), Pratapgarh and now Bareilly have faced communal violence due to police and administration mindset. He warned that if the trend in not arrested in time, then communal elements will again reap a rich harvest.
The SP government will realize what it has to done to its Muslims minorities in coming Parliament Elections in 2014. The outgoing Bahujan Samaj Party, (BSP), Government had done one thing at least which was that it kept the communal harmony intact. It never allowed unlawful and unsocial elements to carry out the sectarian riots, Mr. Abubacker pointed out. (pervezbari@eth.net)