Tag: Muslims

In alert on Chhath Puja, Bihar district admn names Muslims.

Source – indianexpress.com

In an order to the local police and administration, Madhepura District Magistrate Navdeep Shukla has warned against attempts by “mischievous elements from Muslim community (to) cause tension” during the ongoing Chhath festival.

Frowning at the order, the state home department said it would look into the issue. “It was inadvertently phrased,” Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Amir Subhani, said. Bihar DGP Gupteshwar Pandey said the “tone of the order should have been changed”.

In the order, dated October 31, the district magistrate has said: “Water deposit in lanes through which Chhath Puja devotees cross, especially through Muslim settlements… overflowing drain water running through (these) roads causes tension. At times, dismantling of ghat structure because of the crowd also causes problems. Incidents of eve-teasing of relatives and acquaintances of devotees by mischievous elements from Muslim community cause tension. Passing objectionable remarks on Chhath devotees and their relatives causes law and order problems”.

The order also warns against “mischievous elements intending to disturb communal harmony by placing flesh or body parts of dead animals in ponds and rivers”. Citing incidents of communal tension during Dussehra and Muharram in Bihariganj area of the district in 2016, the district administration said special precautions were being taken this time.

When contacted, Shukla told The Sunday Express: “The order is based on Intelligence inputs. Other districts would have also issued such orders. Our idea is to avoid any breach of communal harmony”.

Asked why a particular community had been named, he said: “We put the Intelligence input the way it is. We cannot tone down the language. It is about issuing alerts to ensure that there is no law and order problem… Our goal is to maintain communal harmony”.

The district magistrate, in his order, has referred to an October 23 note from the office of the Additional Director General of Police (Special Branch) on security precautions to be taken during Chhath Puja. This note, however, was a general advisory and did not name any community.

“It will be looked into… I spoke to the DM. He said that it was inadvertently phrased like that. He has been suitably advised,” Bihar Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Amir Subhani said.

Eid-el-Kabir: Buhari urges Muslims to avoid violent extremism

Source: pulse.ng

The President said extremism is giving Islam a wrong name. 

He said this on Saturday, August 10, 2019, while felicitating with muslims.

He said, “Islam is a religion of peace and we should avoid violent extremist ideas that give Islam a wrong name because our conduct leaves more lasting impressions than what we say by word of mouth.

“Violent extremism is the greatest challenge facing Islam today and the only way we can neutralise its evil influence is to distance ourselves from the activities and teachings of those who preach indiscriminate violence against innocent people. This flies in the face of the teachings of Islam.”

In a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, Buhari also advised parents to “protect their children from the deadly exposure to violent extremists who manipulate and exploit those children for their own evil agenda.’’

He also said that the extreme idea of Boko Haram became a major force because Muslim societies failed to act on time to stop the style of preaching by extremists.

He said, “Boko Haram became a deadly force and a major security scourge because Muslim societies were indifferent from the beginning to the activities of extremist preachers who manipulate innocent and gullible followers.”

He, however, assured Nigerians that his administration was working hard to bring an end to Boko Haram terrorism, kidnappings and banditry.

Jharkhand: Over 500 Muslims defy Sec 144 in Ramgarh to protest against mob lynching

Source: dnaindia.com

A group of over 500 people belonging to the Muslim community gathered in a school in Jharkhand’s Ramgarh on Monday to protest against the rising incidents of mob lynchings plaguing their community even amid prohibitory orders issued by the Ramgarh district administration, the Times of India (TOI) reported.

The group, under the banner of the Mutheda Muslim Mahaj, met at Chitrarpur High School just off the National Highway 23 in Gola Road area, to voice their grievances regarding violence against their community. They had earlier sought permission from the district administration for a demonstration rally, which was at first granted but cancelled later on keeping in mind the incidents of violence that are increasingly being associated with anti-mob lynching rallies in the state, the report said.

For a bit of context, a joint group of Muslim organisations had taken out a similar anti-mob lynching rally in state capital Ranchi on Friday but it ended with the group vandalising a Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP) bus in protest demonstrations, according to a Hindustan Times (HT) report. The rally had been taken out specifically in protest of the lynching of Tabrez Ansari in Jharkhand’s Seraikela Kharsawan district on June 18.

In light of this, the Ramgarh district administration, fearing disturbance centering around the rally, had on Sunday cancelled the permission for the rally and also issued prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) that barred all unlawful assembly along the proposed route of the demonstration.

According to reports, even though the rally did not happen, hundreds of Muslims still gathered at the Chitrarpur High School to carry out their protest demonstrations, which, being an unlawful assembly, is also in violation of the prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC.  

The district administration at Ramgarh in Jharkhand said it will take legal action in response to the incident on Monday.

TOI quoted Ramgarh Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) Anant Kumar as saying, “What they (outfit) did was in defiance of the prohibitory orders and we would initiate lawful action against them now.”

On the other hand, the secretary of the Muslim outfit who led the protest demonstrations on Monday, Ahmad Khan, reportedly claimed that even though the permission for the rally had been denied, they had received police permission for a meeting after request on Sunday night.  Ramgarh Superintendent of Police (SP) Prabhat Kumar denied this claim, saying “no such permissions were issued,” according to the HT report.

The report further said that the Chief Speaker at the Muslim gathering, Sahjada Anwar, clarified the purpose behind the demonstration. The Supreme Court had issued directives to every state, including Jharkhand, to the Home Secretary and Director General of Police (DGP) to review mob lynching cases every three months and constitute a task force to look into such cases. “However, nothing of that sort has been done in Jharkhand,” HT quoted an aggrieved Anwar.