‘Indian Muslims fall prey to dirty politics’

Muslims in India have a bleak outlook on the future.
Faheem Siddiqui, vice president of the Indian National League (INL), told Arab News on Sunday: “The Muslim voice is getting weakened by the dirty politics of the state because of the absence of a strong leadership in the community, together with a general pall of gloom, which is manifest in their backwardness in the areas of education and economy.”
He recalled the case of Khalid Mujahid, who was taken from his home in Bijnore, a city in the largest Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, by state police in December 2007. He was implicated in a terror case, languished in jail despite a judicial commission report declaring him innocent, and finally declared dead under suspicious circumstances during police lock-up on May 18 this year.
The INL is one of the major Muslim political parties at the forefront of an ongoing sit-in for the last four months demanding justice for Mujahid.
“The sit-in appears all set to become the longest one, as the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) that rode to power on the solid support of Muslims, has shied away from making any concrete assurances to the Muslim community,” said Siddiqui, who is currently visiting Saudi Arabia.
The INL leader said: “Mujahid, along with three others, was implicated in a terror case and languished in jail for no less than four years despite state-wide demonstrations and appeals to the leaders and the fact that the R. D. Nimesh Commission report exonerated him of all charges.”
After he died under police custody, Siddiqui said, the state Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav sent a check for 600,000 rupees to the family of Mujahid, which his father refused to accept, saying: “We don’t take money for martyrs.”
“The question is: if Mujahid was indeed a terrorist, why did the chief minister take pains to send such an amount to a terrorist’s family,” Siddiqui asked.
“Yadav sent the money because he knew Mujahid was innocent. All this therefore spills over to a larger issue of terrorizing Muslims and implicating them all over the country on false or, at best, flimsy charges.” Intelligence officials are randomly picking Muslim youths from small towns of Indian cities like Azamgarh, Jaunpur, Darbhanga in the name of terror and creating suspicion within the community.
The INL vice president pinned hope on democratic institutions like the judiciary and media, who support the movement.
“We are uniting our ranks, but our morale has been boosted by growing support from various Hindu organizations,” Fahim Siddiqui said.