“What was my sister’s crime that she was labelled a terrorist?” asks Mussarat Jahan, the younger sister of Ishrat Jahan who was killed in Gujarat. An independent inquiry has established that Ishrat was the victim of fake encounter, says her sister’s testimony which is part of a compilation titled “What it means to be a Muslim in India today,” released by director Mahesh Bhatt, Jitendra Avhad, MLA and others at a meeting on Saturday.
The book brings together reports of the People’s tribunal on the atrocities committed against the Minorities in the name of fighting terrorism and the National Meet on the Status of Muslims in Contemporary India by ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy). The tribunals were organised with Human Rights Law Network and Siyasat, an NGO.
Speaking on the occasion, Shabnam Hashmi of ANHAD said that the burning issue now was the continued incarceration of the accused in the Malegaon blast case of 2006 who are denied bail despite the fact that they are innocent. Maulana Abdul Hammed Azhari from Malegaon said the town had a secular tradition even before Independence. He said the government was not sensitive to the issue of justice for Muslims and had no courage to release them from jail. In the case of the Andhra Pradesh government which had picked up people on false charges, it had apologised and even compensated the families.
It was not the case that Hindus should be arrested or Muslims, Maulana Azhari pointed out. Whoever is guilty must be punished, he stressed. The label of terror on the Muslim community must be erased, he added.
Jitendra Avhad, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA who has raised the issue of Ishrat Jahan’s encounter, said that ever since the Nanded blast took place in 2006, he had been raising the issue of right wing terror. He said there was evidence to nail many right wing parties but the government was not doing anything. He said the RDX for the blast involving the right wing did not come from the Indian Army. There are links which need to be investigated, he pointed out. He said this was not a fight only for justice but also a political fight. The government has to ban right wing groups linked to terror, he demanded. There was no need to give Muslims a certificate for nationalism, he pointed out.
The book has a number of testimonies from several parts of the country. Maqdoomi Iqbal Ahmed’s son Dr Farooq Anwar has been held for the Malegaon 2006 blasts and among those refused bail earlier this month. He said that his son was tortured and given electric shocks and forced confessions were extracted from him during Narco tests. The meeting called for immediate release of accused who were innocent, compensation and rehabilitation and action against police officers for torture, among other demands to investigate right wing groups over the years for terror activities.
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