Group asks Government of India to take action against cops and Hindu activists who barged into the campus last week.
The Association of Indian Muslims of America has condemned last week’s police attack on students of India’s Aligarh Muslim University.
We, an organization of Indian Americans, learned with much sadness that last week a contingent of policemen in the city of Aligarh attacked a large group of students of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), at the campus of the university, causing serious injuries to many of them,” an official release from the organization read.
The organization said officers attacked students who were peacefully protesting against a recent communal incident wherein a group of Hindu extremists allegedly barged into the campus and committed violence over the display of a portrait of MA Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, in one of the University buildings.
The group said the way the law enforcement officers behaved reflected their partisan attitude.
The release said police escorted protestors from the extremist group, Hindu Vahini, to the main gate of the university before they entered the university premises. It added that police also beat up AMU students violently despite the peaceful nature of their protest.
“At the same time police authorities are continuing to refuse to file cases against the extremist Hindu Vahini volunteers for illegal violent trespassing,” the release said.
The portrait of Jinnah was installed in one of the university buildings after he became a member of the AMU Students Union in 1938, said Kaleem Kawaja, the Executive Director of AIM.
He pointed out that there are portraits of Jinnah displayed in the main building of the Indian parliament and the High Court in Mumbai.
In late 1948 after Mr. Jinnah’s death, the Indian Constituent Assembly, the forerunner to the Indian parliament, passed a condolence motion and conveyed it to the government of Pakistan. The significance of Jinnah’s photograph in an AMU building is a similar historical phenomenon that should not be misconstrued otherwise, Kawaja said.
He said that a large number of Indian Americans are very aggrieved at the outrageous and violent behavior of the police in abetting the illegal action of a bunch of extremists against the century-old AMU. “We categorically condemn this action of the Indian police and request the government of India to take appropriate action against the erring policemen and extremist Hindu activists,” he said.
1 Comment
They consider us snakes just because we are Muslims. Their fault !
What did they gave us ? So many empires of so many religions came here. Where were they? Why didn’t they protect us ? Why should be believe in India when India was unable to give us anything ? Even the railway was given to us by British empire.