WASHINGTON DC: The Kashmiri-American Council Dec.8 condemned the destruction of a sacred mosque in India by a band of Hindu militants charging this is yet another example of how the Indian Government fails to protect minority rights.

According to a New York Times report “a screaming mob of thousands of Hindu militants stormed a 16th-century mosque here… and demolished it with hammers and their bare hands.” The Government did nothing to stop the attack against a holy Muslim shrine.

“The Indian Governments inept handling of this crisis is yet another example of how they have failed to protect the rights of minorities” said Dr.Ghulam Nabi Fai Executive Director of the Kashmiri American Council.

“In Ayodhya they stand by and do nothing as thousands of Hindu militants attack and destroy a holy mosque sacred to the Muslim minority. In Kashmir the India government actively commits gross violations of human rights against the Muslim majority population. This pattern of officially condoned violence must end. “India claims to be a secular state the world’s largest democracy. What kind of a secular democracy is it when the Government stands by and fails to prevent this kind of ethnic violence? What kind of secular democracy is it when Government forces rape torture and murder Kashmiri Muslims every day in Occupied-Kashmir?

“There is a double standard in India today. India may be a democracy for some but for the Muslim population both within India and in Indian-occupied Kashmir it is a living hell. For these oppressed people India is a tyranny.

“This latest incident gives even greater urgency for us to find a peaceful negotiated settlement to the crisis in Kashmir. This cycle of violence must end.

“India must stop condoning anti-Muslim violence within its borders. And it must stop perpetrating it in Kashmir. Such violence only serves to make the Kashmir conflict more and more intractable and to build animosities that make a political solution more and more elusive.

“Before it is too late we must bring all the parties to the dispute Indian Pakistani and Kashmiri to the peace table.

Article extracted from this publication >> December 18, 1992