Image Courtesy:sentinelassam.com
In fresh developments in the case regarding a highly communal official letter written by a member of the Baksa Foreigners’ Tribunal to the Assam Health Minister, the Leader of the Opposition of the Assam Assembly has now written to the Assam Police Accountability Commission (APAC) demanding action.
Debabrata Saikia, in a letter addressed to chairman of the APAC Deba Kumar Nath, has referred to the letter dated April 7, 2020 by Baksa Foreigners’ Tribunal member Kamlesh Kumar Gupta to Assam Minister Hemanta Biswa Sarma offering donations collected from other FT members. This letter however stipulated that none of the funds be used for providing relief to people who contracted the virus at the Tablighi Jamaat event organized in New Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz in March. Gupta had used words like “jehadi” and “jahil” to describe such people in his letter.
The letter that gave details of donations made to the Assam Arogya Nidhi by various FT members from Baksa, Silchar, Morigaon, Kamrup, Barpeta and Karimganj, said, “Our only prayer is that the help may not be extended to the members of Violators Tablighi Jamaat, Jehadi and Jahil.”
Outraged by this blatant display of communal hate, on April 16, Abdul Khaleque, an MP from Assam’s Barpeta Lok Sabha Constituency, wrote to Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal demanding Gupta be fired from his post as an FT member. In his letter Khaleque says, “By referring to member of one religious community (Muslims) as ‘Jehadi’ and ‘Jahil’ in writing that was widely circulated on Whatsapp and other media, the officer concerned has clearly stoked disharmony, ill-will, feelings of enmity and hatred between different communities, in the region and in the whole nation.”
Now, Saikia has raised concerns about the same FT member. But Siakia’s letter contains are request to address another pressing concern. Since April 21, a portion of an Assamese poem by noted writer-poet-playwright Syed Abdul Malik, had been quoted out of context and circulated widely on social media. Malik was not only a Padmashree awardee and former Member of Parliament, he was well known for bringing out the beauty of Assam’s composite culture in his works.
This blatant defamation of Malik and resulting vilification of Muslims needs to be nipped in the bud. Saikia urges that action be taken in this matter as well. In the latest development in this regard, multiple FIRs have been filed against a college teacher who uploaded the first three stanzas of the poem on social media dubbing them as ‘glorification of Mughals’.
Saikia’s complete letter may be read here:
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