| India-Pakistan |
| India's Muslims denounce Taliban whipping of girl |
| 2009-04-04 |
| After video clips of a 17-year-old girl being flogged in public by Taliban fighters in Pakistan's Swat valley were shown on TV, India's Islamic scholars denounced it as "un-Islamic" and "satanic" and condemned it as "gross violation" of Quranic codes.Renowned Islamic scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan spoke out strongly against the incident and added that if anything, the act was absolutely "un-Islamic - even satanic"."This kind of treatment is neither Islamic nor human. In fact, not only is it un-Islamic and inhuman, but also satanic," Khan, who has authored over 200 books on Islam, told IANS."The first thing that should be done is to educate people, develop ethical values, sensitivity towards women and treat them equally. Society can be reformed through education - punishment (of the perpetrators) can never be the starting point for any kind of reform or change," he added. Similarly, Mushirul Hasan, vice chancellor of the Jamia Millia Islamia university, condemned the incident saying that it was a wrong portrayal of Islam, which preaches exactly opposite of what the Taliban were seen doing to the hapless young girl."I am horrified. This (incident) is a gross violation of Islamic and Quranic injunctions which teaches humanity, love, peace and magnanimity," Hasan told IANS.The dangers of imposing Sharia laws in Pakistan's restive Swat Valley were brought into sharp focus Friday with the airing of a two-minute video showing a 17-year-old screaming, burqa-clad girl being whipped by Taliban fighters for coming "out of her house with another man who was not her husband".The grainy video, shot on a mobile phone, showed the girl face down on the ground. Two men held her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned man with a flowing beard, whipped her repeatedly. Salima Khan, a student doing her PhD in Delhi University, said that she literally boiled in anger after seeing the video clip on YouTube, the popular video sharing website and then again on TV."I can't believe how anybody can humiliate and beat up an innocent young girl in the name of religion. And what was her fault - that she was seen with a man who was not her husband! Who in their right state of mind would ever dare to do such a dastardly act?"Such acts just show how Islam has been grossly misinterpreted by a handful of people who are using it as a tool to serve their own cause," Salima said angrily. On YouTube, the video received thousands of hits overnight and a barrage of comments. One of the comments read: "These people (Taliban) should be given a taste of their own medicine. They should be whipped in public for maligning the name of Islam and inflicting torture on poor, helpless women".Another comment from an Indian woman read: "Thank God I was born in India and not there (Swat valley). There they treat women like animals - no, even worse. To live a life like that seems like sheer hell."However, the authorities of Darul Uloom, one of the most renowned seminaries in the Deoband town of western Uttar Pradesh, chose to keep mum. Maulana Abdul Khaleeq Madrasi, pro vice chancellor of the seminary, told IANS: "We cannot give any statement on the matter from the institution as we don't know the details at the moment".India has an estimated 140 million Muslims, the third largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan. |
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| India-Pakistan |
| Treason cant be made respectable |
| 2008-10-19 |
| By Swapan Dasgupta Having closely followed the debate on terrorism for a decade, I am mystified by the suggestion made by those who have transformed Batla House in Delhis Jamia Nagar into a pilgrimage site that the Indian Establishment has come to view every Muslim as a terrorist. Which person of consequence has said so? What is the evidence that the Indian State views 13 per cent of India as outlaws? No political party and no political and religious leader have made such a preposterous suggestion. Yet, for the past month, important bodies of Indias Muslim community and secular politicians have worked themselves into a frenzy about the complete equation of Muslims with terrorism. What began as a run-of-the-mill protest by a nervous ghetto and a grandstanding Vice-Chancellor has escalated into a mischievous movement to scare Muslims into seeking the protective embrace of sectarian groups. Mobilisation through fear and panic has become the signature tune of those who want to divert attention from terror and confine the Muslim community to an emotional ghetto. Worse, there is an organised attempt to coerce a confused Government into abandoning the war on terror with the threat of withdrawal of political support by an entire religious community. The game plan is insidious but it has already had a measure of success. Under pressure, the Delhi Police has more or less put on hold the follow-up investigations into the terrorist ring that was operating in Delhi. Mercifully, the Gujarat and Maharashtra Police have not followed suit. In other words, there have been no attempts to explore the wider links of the cell operating from Batla House. Have the leads given by Gujarat Police been pursued? Has there, for example, been any follow-up of why the group maintained close links with some who nominally claim to be journalists? There is an orchestrated attempt to undermine the faith of Muslim in all the institutions of the State. There is, per se, nothing out of the ordinary in the demand for an inquiry into the Batla House encounter made, among others, by the Minority Cell of the Congress Party. It is routine for all those with any grievance to put forward such proposals and it is not obligatory for any Government to accede to the protesters. Yet, there is something sinister in the demand by Samajwadi Party MP Abu Azmi that 25 per cent of any inquiry panel must comprise Muslims. From here to the demand that Muslims must be tried only by Muslims is a small jump and this jump will, probably, be made during the General Election campaign. Other institutions, too, are being transformed into extensions of the ghetto. The Minority Commission has turned into a sectarian pressure point and spends taxpayers money sloganeering. The National Integration Council meet last week had the usual quota of chief ministerial platitudes but beyond that it was turned into an unreal demonstration of a bid to cripple the fight against terrorism. One participant confided that there were moments the NIC resembled a working committee meeting of the pre-1947 Muslim League. Likewise, a function last Friday in Aligarh Muslim University to commemorate the 191st birth anniversary of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan turned, predictably, into a political demonstration of angst. But it was also marked by a very revealing assertion of separateness. According to the Indian Express, the audience jeered as a students dupatta slipped off her head while she was on stage to talk about Sir Syed. In her confusion, the student looked around. Someone pointed at the dupatta. Only after she pulled it back did the audience let her speak. The innocuous incident raises a pertinent question: Have public-funded universities like AMU and Jamia Millia accepted Mushirul Hasans assertion that we owe no explanation to anyone except ourselves and to our faith as their operating principle? A dangerous social divide is being created between those who believe that terrorism must be stamped out and those who want to give the terrorists a protective cover built on a religious identity. The Muslim community must not allow itself to become a shield for those who want to disfigure India. Treason cant be made respectable. |
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| India-Pakistan | |
| Jamia University to use taxpayers' money to defend terrorists | |
| 2008-09-24 | |
| The decision of Jamia Milia Islamia to defend Delhi serial blast accused Mohammed Shakeel and Zia-ur-Rahman would amount to misuse of public funds. There is no provision under the funding rules promulgated by the University Grants Commission under which a university/college can defend an employee or student booked for a criminal act. "The decision of Jamia Vice-Chancellor Mushirul Hasan is most unfortunate as the public funds would be used to defend somebody who is being booked for waging war against the nation," said a UGC official. The claim made by the Jamia Vice-Chancellor that the university being an autonomous body was well within its rights to take decisions on such matters has come to be questioned. Within hours of suspending two students who were arrested in connection with the Delhi serial blasts, Mushirul Hasan declared on Monday night that the university would defend its students in court. While releasing funds to the universities/colleges, UGC issues guidelines on how the expenses have to be made from these funds. The executive head of the institutions that is the Vice-Chancellors in the case of the universities and Principals in the case of the colleges are made responsible for the expenditure of the funds in accordance with the guidelines. If the expenses are not made according to the guidelines it amounts to financial misconduct.
There is provision for legal expenses in the universities under non-recurring budget. But these expenses have to be made where the university/college has been made a party. These cases generally relate to the civil and service matters. If a principal/head has been booked for a criminal case or in civil matter, he has to arrange for his own defence. "When Zakir Hussain College lecturer SAR Gilani faced a similar case, he arranged for his own defence. He was suspended from the service till he was declared innocent," said a Delhi University official. Claiming that Jamia's reputation was at stake, Hasan had said in a statement, "The university feels morally bound to defend its students until proven guilty and we will use the legal apparatus for this." Mohammad Shakeel, a student of MA (Economics) and Zia-ur-Rehman, a student of final year BA (Pass), were suspended by the Vice-Chancellor on Monday but soon thereafter he succumbed to the pressure of Islamist elements on the campus announcing the decision to defend the subversives. | |
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| India-Pakistan | ||||
| Hindus allow girls to protect their faith | ||||
| 2003-06-03 | ||||
KANPUR, India - At her summer camp, 10-year-old Stuti Gupta is learning to use guns, leap through rings of fire and fight with knives and wooden truncheons - skills India's most powerful Hindu nationalist group tells her she needs to protect her faith. The women's wing of the World Hindu Council is holding training camps in several parts of India, where girls learn martial arts and are "ordained" with metal tridents, the symbol of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. But in a modern nation built on principles of tolerance and equality, such camps don't just deepen Hindus' faith. They create cauldrons of hostility and inject hatred against Muslims and Christian minorities, critics say.
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