By Salman Sultan, TwoCircles.net Special Correspondent,
I personally believe that formation of Ulama Council was a blunder as it has led to the defeat of a strong Muslim candidate and allowed the BJP to win Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat, Dr. Zafrul Islam Khan, Editor Milli Gazette and President All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawrat, told Salman Sultan, TCN Special Correspondent, in an interview. He was in Azamgarh to attend the managing committee meeting of Darul Musannefin Shibli Academy. On NHRC report on Batla House encounter Dr Khan said: It’s a hasty report, the Commission depended on Police version and not tried to ascertain other version of victims and their relatives.
NHRC has submitted its report on seemingly fake Batla House Encounter. What is your comment?
It’s a hasty report. The Commission has depended on Police version and it has not tried to ascertain other version of victims, their relatives and people of the area where encounter took place.
People living in Batla House area have said that no one approached them and the commission did not send any team to meet the accused lodged in different jails (Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad etc). I am in Azamgarh and have come to know that nobody has come to meet the relatives of Muslim youths killed or arrested.
What should be done now?
We should continue the agitation. We should continue to build public opinion in India and abroad about injustice being done to Muslim youths and the district of Azamgarh, which has been given a bad name, should protest, hold “Dharnas”, and write to P.M. telling injustice done by the NHRC. We demand a high level judicial enquiry and we will not rest until such an enquiry is ordered and until justice is done to the victims who were innocent and fell victim to hasty Police action which became a scandal once the two youths (one of them a minor) were killed in L-18 Batla House. Thereafter Police built up a big conspiracy theory and started harassing and arresting people just to show that it was right and NHRC has been victim of this Police plot. There is ample evidence that the Police and other security agencies resort to a lot of custodial killing in various parts of India and the information about this scandal that is going on in the biggest democracy is in public domain. The government is doing nothing to arrest this serious violation of Human Rights.
Azamgarh people protested the seemingly fake Batla House Encounter by taking a train to Delhi but with the ensuing Parliamentary elections they got involved in electoral politics. Was it a mistake?
It was not a mistake to participate in elections. Muslims have no real choice before them but to vote for forces, which still believe in secularism and fair play for all citizens of India, but I think the Congress Party has not read the underlined message that Muslims wanted to give it and its adversaries. In other way Congress Party has taken Muslim votes for granted and if Congress Party does not quickly correct this misreading it will be a big fat loser in the next elections as the same Muslims who voted for it all over India especially in North can vote for other parties. The Congress should know that many secular options in the form of regional, nationalist and communist parties are still available to the voters.
I personally believe that formation of Ulama Council was a blunder as it has led to the defeat of a strong Muslim candidate and allowed the BJP candidate, who has the image of a ‘Goonda’ and muscleman to win, which was a big mistake and it was clear as to what result Azamgarh will deliver even before elections.
What to do now and how to proceed for coming elections?
I am not against Muslim-led political parties but there should be only one party in a State like Muslim League in Kerala or UDF in Assam. If there are more than one political party then they should unite and fight the elections from a united platform and these candidates must never fight against each other or fight against strong secular candidates put up by other political parties.