NEW DELHI: Shani Imam of Jama Masjid, Syed Abdullah Bukhari, in a media interview said early this week that Muslims had been picked up and tortured after the recent Bombay blasts. “The recent developments have strengthened the suspicion that Muslims in India continue to be treated as second class citizens. And every time something happens as in Bombay and Calcutta last week Muslims got the worst treatment,” he said. Imam further said that incidents of bomb blasts occurred in the past also. Certainly this was unprecedented.
Since never before have the blasts occurred in a chain and at different places in the city. They may arrest any number of persons, Piloo Khan or whatever, but what are the grounds for the arrests? They feel we are a vulnerable lot and make us admit things at gunpoint. Is it justified to give shock treatment and torture people to make them say things which point the needle of suspicion towards the Muslim community? Let the matter be decided by court of law. ‘The right and just trial will be in the court and not in the hands of intelligence agencies and the police. Even though both home minister S.B.Chavan and defense minister Sharad Pawar were in Bombay during the communal riots but Muslims continued to be butchered in the city. How can the government justify that? I have lost faith in the government; the country is heading towards total chaos and anarchy. What about those who engineered the January riots in Bombay? They openly claimed that they demolished the Babri masjid. Yet they are roaming the streets of Bombay. They are the real culprits. How is it that they have still not been arrested?.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 26, 1993
