This propaganda is an attempt to derail the current discussion on misguided Waqf Bill. This campaign falsely claims that the DMC has suggested and DWB has demanded lands of Hindu temples. The fact is that neither DMC nor DWB ever suggested or demanded that temples built on Waqf land be demolished or their land be returned to the DWB. This is an unmitigated lie.

The DMC report of 2019 on some West Delhi mosques (https://archive.org/details/dmc-report-on-illegal-mosques-delhi) was prepared to examine the claim of the then BJP MP Mr Parvesh Verma that “illegal” mosques have been built in his parliamentary constituency and that such mosques should be demolished.

Mr Parvesh Verma had sent his complaint to the Delhi Lt. Governor in June 2019 claiming that 54 “illegal” mosques have cropped up in his constituency (West Delhi) during the last 20 years. He demanded that action should be taken against these mosques. In other words, he wanted these mosques be demolished. When no action was taken on his complaint, Mr Verma re-sent his complaint to the L.G. the next month.

On the publication of reports in the media about this communication to the L.G. by Mr Verma, as the then Chairman of the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC), I formed a 5-member committee consisting of two Muslims, two Christians and a Sikh. All of them were reputed members of society and were active in legal and human rights fields. The committee inspected all the mosques on the list provided by Mr Verma, inspected their papers and finally presented a detailed report to the Commission saying that none of these mosques is illegal while some of them were centuries-old and thus protected as ancient monuments. At the same time, the Committee came across a number of illegal temples found in the vicinity of the so-called “illegal” mosques and at times built on the same plot of land as the mosques.

In its report, the Committee mentioned these temples along with their locations and photographs, although Mr Verma had missed them.

Copies of the said DMC report were sent to the L.G., Delhi Chief Minister and even to Mr Parvesh Verma himself. The report was also released to the media during a press conference. Thereafter, Mr Verma never raised that issue. Now, after five years, Zee News suddenly remembered that report but (deliberately) potrayed this in a skewed, totally wrong context. Zee News presented it claiming that DWB wants to grab temple lands, while the report only passingly mentioned that some temples in the vicinity of the so-called illegal mosques stood on Waqf lands.

Our committee had inspected each and every mosque on Mr Verma’s list and found that no mosque in the list was “illegal”. All were legal while some were centuries-old. During its visits, the Committee came across illegal temples found in the area and discovered that some of them were built on Waqf lands. The Committee registered this fact in its report but did not make any demand on the said lands of the illegal temples. The DWB too did not stake any claim on such lands.

The propaganda aired by an entranced, ‘godi media’ now is totally concocted, brazenly motivated. This campaign obscures the real purpose and findings of the said report. It is an attempt to misdirect the current discussion on the Waqf issue and pave the way to drastic changes in the Waqf law as planned by the Modi government.

A few days back a reporter of Zee News phoned me saying that next day they are holding a panel discussion on the issue on their channel. He wanted me to participate in the said discussion. I apologized saying that for the last four and a half years I do not talk to Godi media due to bitter past experiences about its bias and lies. The said reporter quickly apologised and ended the call.

Next day a reporter of Zee Salam, the Urdu section of Zee News, phoned me for an interview. I repeated what I told earlier to his colleague. He assured me that Zee Salam is different and that my interview will be carried in full with no cuts. After this, I accepted to meet him. He came in the evening and recorded a long interview with me in which I explained the gist and the circumstances and the result of the DMC report and how it is being twisted now. I also gave him a printed copy of the said DMC report. That interview was not carried that night. Upon my enquiry, the reporter told me that the interview will be carried next day. On the following day, Zee News assembled six persons including three saffron-clad Hindutvites. The panel included an advocate who was a member of the said DMC committee. He tried to explain the issue but was not allowed by the anchor to complete his explanation while time was amply given to others including a saffron-clad sadhu who bluntly announced that if you take the land of one temple, we will take ten mosques!

Later, a reporter of a Hindi newspaper talked to me on the same issue but I ended the call when, instead of listening to me, he kept blurting out his understanding of the issue on the Godi media lines.

This propaganda continues on various Godi media and Hindutva platforms. The fact is that these people are not after truth. They can utter any lie in order to serve their agenda. The agenda is dangerous and divisive, to generate lies, half-truths about India’s minorities, the Muslims. 

(The author is a former Chairman, Delhi Minorities Commission)

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Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan, Chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission has been granted protection from coercive action by the Delhi High Court in his anticipatory bail application. This protection is extended till the next date of hearing, which is June 22.

The single bench of justice Manjo Ohri heard the application filed by Dr. Khan through his counsel, Vrinda Grover. In the plea, Dr. Khan had asked for urgent relief of protection for arrest and coercive action in, what is, a ‘frivolous’ and ‘motivated’ case.

Brief Background

On April 28, Dr. Khan had written a post on social media appreciating Kuwait for standing in solidarity with Indian Muslims. In this post, while acknowledging the international community’s support, Dr. Khan has emphatically stated that Indian Muslims do not seek or require external help in India thus taking a firm stand of non-interference in India’s internal affairs.

This message was then maliciously distorted and falsely broadcasted by certain sections of electronic media. Whereafter, an FIR was lodged against Dr. Khan for this post on social under charges of sedition and for promoting enmity.

Anticipatory bail application

Dr. Khan’s Anticipatory Bail Application, filed by his lawyer Vrinda Grover states that “the complaints against the Petitioner have been filed with obtuse motive and malafide is evidenced by the use of social media to attract publicity to the complaints and persons who filed them.” Calling the complaint “misconceived”, the application states that the FIR was made on “misrepresentation of facts and an erroneous, untenable reading of the law”. It further states that the complaint has been filed “with a mala fide intention to harass and intimidate” Dr. Khan.

He also stated that since March 2020, India witnessed widespread hate speech and attacks against members of Muslim community, which includes blaming the Muslim community for spreading COVID19. The distortion of his social media post is also a part of this vilification and this has had an effect of inciting contempt towards Dr. Khan as well. This was evident from the many frivolous and malicious complaints filed against Dr. Khan after the media coverage of his social media post which highlighted the plight of the minority population which had been targeted by certain elements in society, and further acknowledged the role of the international fraternity in raising concerns regarding the wellbeing of Indian Muslims. Viewed as a whole, the statement does not allude to any tendency, leave alone incitement, of violence against the government or any section of the population.

Dr. Khan had sought the anticipatory bail as the FIR against him was filed with malafide intention of harassing and intimidating him while he performed his statutory duty of protecting the rights of Muslims.

Related:

Dr. Zafarul Islam files for anticipatory bail, hearing on May 12

Dr Zafar ul Islam Khan must be protected from all harassment and intimidation

In targeting Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, Modi-Shah throw a challenge to civil society, minorities

The post Delhi HC grants Dr. Zafarul granted protection from coercive action until next hearing appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In days of old, when life was normal – in a manner of speaking – many a Muslim young man would reach out to Dr Zafarul Islam Khan for wise counsel to get out whatever difficulty they had encountered at work, or play, or God forbid, if they found themselves in some serious trouble.

Long before he was named chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission by Chief minister Mr Arvind Kejriwal, the 72 year old academic, publisher and editor, was already a compassionate ear for those seeking help, advice, or just solace. An avuncular uncle, a community elder to be trusted to come to their relief.

His office as chair of the minorities commission perhaps just added a government stamp on a reputation well earned by himself, and through his family.

He is the son of the venerable Islamic scholar, Mr. Wahiddudin Khan,  a peacenik and proponent of inter-religious harmony if ever there was one in the country. Dr Zafarul Islam Khan himself is no mean scholar, with his higher studies  abroad, and rare scholarship in Arabic.  His English language magazine, Milli Gazette, was the go-to journal for researchers and fellow journalists, for its documentation of news, and insights. He ran the magazine in its print format for as long as he could, before turning it into an internet news portal. Milli Gazette was perhaps the only non-political party published English magazine from the community. It covered issues of other  minorities too, but became a window to developments across the country narrated until then only in the Urdu press.

But Dr Khan came into his own as head of the Delhi Minorities Commission.  I have for decades interacted with the National Commission for Minorites and various state commissions, and found most of them useless, not even paper tigers. It is unfortunate that most of the commissions set up in the country for the welfare of religious minorities forget that their role is in the nature of a watchdog smelling out any violation of the rights and liberties other wards. Most are subservient to the appointing authority, the Prime Minisger or the chief minister, sometimes at the cost of the common people.

Dr Khan broke the pattern. When occasion came in the last two years, he spoke against the  ruling dispensation. Delhi’s complicated multi-tier governance is structurally biased against the underdog, the victim, the poor. The police is with the Prime Minister, doing his bidding through the Union Home Minister and the Lt Governor of Delhi, almost always a retired and very subservient bureaucrat.  To challenge police highhandedness, and atrocities, implies challenging the highest in the land.

Delhi’s revolt  against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA, 2019) and the National Citizenship  Register found him in fine fettle. He had already spoken out against the raging islamophobia, the atrocities in Assam on the issue of citizenship, and the police violence in Aligarh Muslim University where sten guns, grenades and tear gas were both used to flush out peaceful students from their hostel rooms.

Shaheen Bagh, replicated a score and multiple times in Delhi and more than a hundred times across the nation. The protest (or protests) were followed soon thereafter with the massive targeted  violence in East Delhi.

The public discourse on the violence was altered by the death of an off duty junior employee of the central Intelligence Bureau [his family has since then been granted a Rs One crore compensation by the Delhi government, in addition to grants from the central government]. The police was clear. Its job was to hunt out Muslims involved in this murder, and the murder of other Hindus.

There was, to all intents and purposes, no pursuit of political leaders, including a sitting minister of state in the Union council of ministers, and a former legislator of Delhi, who had in direct and pungent Hindi advocated  shooting down of dissenters. The police were in no hurry to look for the killers of scores of young men trapped and killed in East Delhi. When an angry high court bench indicted the police, the judge was summarily transferred, and the chief justice reversed  the orders. There is no evidence in the public domain to indicate how many of those involved in the murder of Muslim men have been arrested.

The  suspension of civil society and the media in the Covid Lockdown is just the environment the political dispensation and the police have been praying for, it seems. Without let and without hindrance, the police are on a spree arresting JNU students for so-called anti-national activities, harassing and intimidating others , and absolutely terrorising  young Muslims they brand as activists.

This is worrisome for all of us in Civil Society. Internet petitions, which we have signed by the dozen, have no legal value, and the union government routinely  sweeps them out as spam.

The total lack of movement has restricted even family members trying to go to court, further hindered by ‘procedure’: of absolute illiteracy in seeking genuine relief in virtual hearing through a laptop App.

The country’s tallest civil rights lawyers, Dr. Colin Gonsalves among them, and Dr. Khan’s own counsel, Ms Vrinda Grover have pointed out that the FIR filed against Dr Khan is frivolous, malicious and without legal merit. Absolutely no criminal act or intent is made out against the chairman of the Delhi minorities commission. At worst, if one were to put it this way, perhaps the wise Dr. Khan need not have been so warm in welcoming tweets by princesses and officials in the Gulf region who had hit out at the virulent islamophobia that was competing with Covid in its anarchy. An indiscretion, at best. Not a crime.

The police have soiled their reputation in their raid on Dr. Khan’s house, just a few minutes before he and every Muslim in the city was about to break the Ramzan Roza, or fast, in the traditional Iftar.  Their insistence that he accompany them to the police station – a sort of informal arrest  and humiliation – was thwarted by the local people collecting in large numbers in the lane where his house is situated. Ms Vrinda Grover also issued a grave warning to the police not to dare take her client to the police station by force.

At 72 years, Dr Khan is protected by existing rules from such dire action by  the police. Not that the city’s police force cares much about standard operating procedures and human rights. In the many arrests after December 19, 2019, following the myriad anti-CAA, anti-NPR/NRC demonstrations, were men and women in their 70s, some of them with chronic ailments, including cardiac diseases and diabetes. They were rounded up and kept without food and water for long hours.

The police do not really need to arrest Dr. Khan for a tweet. If that were so, they had their hands full looking for the trolls who have threatened Muslim youth with murder, violence, and gang rape.

Mr Modi’s police is not simply harassing or trying to intimidate a 72 year old scholar. In targeting the chairman of the state minorities commission,  the central government is intimidating the entire community, already victimised beyond comprehension in the past five months and more.

Mr Modi’s government  has also thrown down a gauntlet to civil society, to every decent citizen; that the ruling party, their ideological phalanxes in the larger Sangh Parivar, do not care for civilities, or the dignity assured each citizen by and under the Constitution. They think that the Covid-inspired curfew, which the police has capitalised to the full, provides them enough cover to do dirty by the Constitution.

But even this curfew has a shelf life. And therein lies hope.

[Dr John Dayal, civil liberties and human rights activist,  was nominated to the National Integration Council in 2004, and re-nominated in 2009. The Prime Minister, who is the chairman of the NIC, has not called a single meeting of the NIC in his six years in office.] 

The post In targeting Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, Modi-Shah throw a challenge to civil society, minorities appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission, Dr Zafarul Islam Khan (72), is a world renowned scholar, journalist and civil rights activist. He was one of the first Muslim scholars who was the first to speak up againt the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which evolved into the terrorist outfit Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or the Islamic State (IS) . He was also one of the first to speak up against the crimes against humanity committed by ISIS, as well as  Boko Haram.  

As an globally acclaimed expert on Islamic studies and the Arab world, his opinions and analysis of  issues concerning, emanating from the community are much sought after. Dr Khan is known to be vocally opposed to any extremisim,  and is against discrimination of any form. Perhaps some of these credentials are what led to his appointment as chairman of DMC since July 2017. The commission is a  quasi-judicial body,  “set up under the Delhi Minorities Commission Act,1999 passed by the Delhi Legislative Assembly on 24.12.99. The notified Minority Communities, as per the Act, are Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis. To safeguard the rights and interests, as provided in the Constitution of India of religious minorities in the National Capital Territories of Delhi.Now as per the notification order dated 13/10/2008 by Chief Secretary, GNCT of Delhi “Jain” Community is also treated as Minority Community in the NCT of Delhi.”

Closer home, for hundreds of survirors of the February 2020, anti-Muslim pogrom that raged through Northeast Delhi, Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, and his team of DMC members, and rights activists were the first ever ‘officials’  to come and ask of their well being. His team mapped the violence and carnage, and an extensive report is expected soon. He has continued to monitor the situaiton while also taking up issues of the many cases of violence, social and economic boycot, and  vilification of the Muslim community, specially the economically weaker sections of the conunty, who have been, and contunue to be targetted even as they struggle to survive in the national Covid19 lockdown. 

The news, reported in the Hindustan Times,  that the Delhi Police’s special cell had  booked Dr Khan under sedition charges, after he allegedly made “provocative” remarks in his social media posts,  has been responded to by statements of solidarity from prominent civil rights activists from across the country. 

Dr Khan’s name is the latest, and he is certainly the oldest, and the only one holding a Constitutional post, on the list of Muslims to have been charged under Indian Penal Code sections 124 A (sedition) and other criminal sections. According to the HT report the cases were booked on the basis of a first information report (FIR) filed in delhi. The news report quoted  Joint Commissioner of Police (special cell) Neeraj Thakur as saying that the FIR been registered “under Indian Penal Code sections 124 A (sedition) and 153 A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony).

The police action against Dr Khan has been  strongly condemned across the country. Activists have said that Dr Khan is being targeted by  “politicians with ulterior motives and news channel anchors known for spreading bigotry and Islamophobia” who have,  “mischievously sought to misinterpret his statement and ridiculously label him as anti-Hindu and anti-India.”

They reminded the country that Dr Khan has just reiterated what many studies have stated and what rights activists are saying across the world . “European governments, United States of America,  and United Nations human rights mechanisms have repeatedly underlined their  concern at the increasing human rights abuse and violations of religious minorities in India,” the Indian activists stated.

The Delhi Minority Commission (DMC) led by him has assessed  the compensation for the massive damage caused in North-East Delhi too. “The compensation in our view is not adequate. The Central Government, being directly responsible for the law and order in Delhi should have stepped in but it has not.”

Before the Covid 19 lockdown hit  had also put on record the DMC attempts to bring peace between Hindus and Muslims living in the affected areas through “Peace Committees’ and said it was a massive and ongoing process. People who have seen their kin murdered, attacked and their houses and shops burnt will not be reassured by mere talk. I think people from the majority community should come forward to rebuild the burnt bridges. This is all the more important since we are getting reports that majority community people in some affected pockets are preventing the return of victims to their homes. It is a matter of sorrow that both the state and Union governments are not taking initiatives in this direction.”

He said this was a “big challenge not only in the North East district of Delhi but in most parts of the country where Hindutva forces are trying to cause social rupture between the two communities.”

Dr Zafarul Islam Khan’s timely interventions on problems of minorities in Delhi have made him a respectable figure among not only Muslims but Sikh, Christians, Jains and Parsis, say activists.

“The hateful propaganda against Dr Khan is one more illustration of how certain Indians fail to differentiate between Hinduism, a religion and Hindutva which is a supremacist political ideology,” the statement reiterated. According to the civil rights activists an attack and targeting of Dr Khan,  a scholar ambassador who has earned international prestige for India, is “an insult to Indian constitution and ethos.”

They have demanded the “Government of India take strong legal action against those who are distorting Dr Khan’s Facebook post, and spreading vicious false propaganda against him.”

A veteran journalist, and activist who has known Dr Khan for decades said: “it is shameful how the government is targeting Dr Zafarul Islam, the chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission. I have known Zik for thirty years, and his revered father for fifty years. His is a family of scholars whose loyalty to India and its ethos cannot ever be doubted. His statements, his writings bear witness to that. As chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission, he had rendered exemplary service to the minorities in the capital city. His is the only voice among those holding any public office, that has dared challenge excesses which happen often in Delhi, where the municipalities and the police are run either by the Union Home Minister or the party overlords, and the streets run by the RSS in many areas.”

Activists say there is a clear pattern of targeting and intimidation in such actions against a public figure like Dr Khan who had spoken out against those who have been targeting Muslims under the garb of the lockdown. The Muslims targeted also include small time vendors, and shop owners who have been stopped on the streets and harassed by Hindutva vigilante groups. Dr Khan, who as DMC chairman, has raised such issues multiple times, and even sent notices to Delhi Police seeking answers.

He had said: “The bigots forgot that Indian Muslims enjoy huge goodwill in the eyes of the Arab and Muslim world for their services over centuries to Islamic causes, excellence in Islamic and Arabic scholarship, cultural and civilisational gifts to world heritage…”

… Mind you, bigots, Indian Muslims have opted until now not to complain to the Arab and Muslim world about your hate campaigns and lynchings and riots. The day they are pushed to do that, bigots will face an avalanche,” he stated.

As  the trolls targetted him online and were amplified by television news channels, with villifying headlines such as: “When Zafarul Islam Khan Shared Post Full Of Religious Hatred Base, Dr Khan had then told Sabrang that his words were distorted by the news channels who spoke to him over the phone. “Many false statements/opinions have been attributed to me.  I will take appropriate legal steps available to me against them,” he had said.

There is a design in targeting him, activists say. Standing in solidarity with him academic, activist and writer Prof Shamsul Islam said,  “there is nothing objectionable in what Dr Khan has said. This is an attempt to intimidate and send a message to those who are speaking  up.”

“We should welcome the world to inspect how we treat our women, our Dalits, our tribals, our poor, our religious minorities, because then it would show that we have nothing to hide, and that we are taking care of all of them to the best of our capability. India should, and does, speak out when Pakistan ill treats its Hindus, Sikhs.It is shameful how childish has been India’s response to the USCIRF report. India is among the few countries in the world – they may include North Korea, perhaps – which fight shy of giving visas to many UN special rapporteurs on human rights, and persecutes human rights groups such as Amnesty,” said Dr John Dayal, an author and civil rights activist.

Others took notice of the speed at which action against Dr Khan has been initiated as the Covid19 lockdown was extended for two more weeks. “If @DelhiPolice hs shown an iota of urgency to file charges under 153A agnst AnuragThakur, ParveshVerma KapilMishra as it has selectively & mischievously shown in filling case against @khan_zafarul, India’s image wld not hav been under attack globally.” said rights activist Navaid Hamid. 

If @DelhiPolice hs shown an iota of urgency to file charges under 153A agnst AnuragThakur, ParveshVerma KapilMishra as it has selectively & mischievously shown in filling case against @khan_zafarul, India’s image wld not hav been under attack globally. https://t.co/e1qsNhJ9Ez

— Navaid Hamid نوید حامد (@navaidhamid) May 2, 2020

Such an action against a minorities commission chairman is unprecedented, recalled 

AC Michael a former member Delhi Minorities Commission who has raised his voice on many issues during his tenure, “We never faced any political pressure. We never feared any political witch-hunt as commission members we did our Constitutional duty. This is an unprecedented action against a sitting chairman of DMC.” He recalled that there was no ‘fear’ of or interference in the commissions work by either politicians or the Police.

The FIR against Dr Khan was filed on the complaint of a Vasant Kunj resident, said the HT report. The complaint reached the Lodhi Colony office of the anti-terror squad, special cell, through the assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Safdarjung Enclave. 

On Thursday, Dr Khan posted a statement that included this clarification: “I realise that my tweet was ill-timed and insensitive in view of our country facing a medical emergency and fighting an unseen enemy. I apologise to all whose sentiments were hurt.”

“I have not complained against my country to any foreign government or organization nor I intend to do so in future. I am a patriot to the core and I have always defended my country abroad. However, at the same time I have always been vocal about the problems in our country like any other country but, I also believe that we and our political, constitutional and judicial system are capable of tackling them. I have always defended my country.”

Related 

Designate India as ‘Country of Particular Concern’, impose sanctions: USCIRF

Arab Solidarity is Welcome, But Indian Muslims Must Remain the Vanguard

Hate video calls for banning Muslims from Delhi colonies

Communal forces using Covid-19 as fodder to target minorities?

The post Accusing Dr Zafarul Islam Khan of sedition, is an attempt to intimidate: Activists appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The national Covid19 lockdown has been the best thing to have happened to online trolls, even part time ones, safe from recession, and without wasting time to commute to their day jobs, they have been at work full time to find new targets each day. While the police continues its arrests, and intimidation of activists and students leaders, and charging them under various IPC sections including UAPA.

On April 28, Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan Chairman, Delhi Minorities Commission had posted this on his Facebook page: “Thank you Kuwait for standing with the Indian Muslims! The Hindutva bigots calculated that given the huge economic stakes involved the Muslim and Arab world will not care about the persecution of Muslims in India.” 

He addressed the bigots who have been busy targeting Muslims under the garb of the lockdown, the incidents have been reported from across the country, but more so from Uttar Pradesh. Such bigoted actions have also had an adverse effect on India’s image aborad and has invited stern reactions especially from the Arab nations which the Indian diplomatic corps have had to respond too. The Muslims targeted also include small time vendors, and shop owners who have been stopped on the streets and harassed by Hindutva vigilante groups.  

Dr Khan, who as DMC chairman, has raised such issues multilple time, sent notices to Delhi Police and sought answers was direct and said: “The bigots forgot that Indian Muslims enjoy huge goodwill in the eyes of the Arab and Muslim world for their services over centuries to Islamic causes, excellence in Islamic and Arabic scholarship, cultural and civilisational gifts to world heritage. Names like Shah Waliullah Dehlavi, Iqbal, Abul Hasan Nadwi, Wahiduddin Khan, Zakir Naik and many others are respected household names in the Arab and Muslim world.

Mind you, bigots, Indian Muslims have opted until now not to complain to the Arab and Muslim world about your hate campaigns and lynchings and riots. The day they are pushed to do that, bigots will face an avalanche,” he stated.

Soon enough the army of trolls was activated online and their hatespeech was then amplified by some television news channels, whose anchors in turn dedicated ‘news debates’  with villifying headlines such as: “When Zafarul Islam Khan Shared Post Full Of Religious Hatred Based On Lie” by ABP News; Zafarul-Islam Khan ने Zakir Naik की तारीफ की कहा, “हम अरब देशों को शिकायत करेंगे तो भारी पड़ेगा” on News18” etc.  Most of them insinuate that Dr Khan had “threatened” that he will ‘complain’ to the  Arab world against the harassment of Muslims in India. Over half a dozen such debates are not available online on a simple search of his name. A similar reaction to his observations is also seen on twitter. And it is a given that all of that has probably made it to the fake news channels on Whatsapp.  

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zafrul+islam+khan

Not one to be cowed down, Dr Khan is most likely to send legal notices to the TV news channels accusing them of distorting his words to suit their own agendas. While his lawyers are sending the notices, Dr Khan also posted a statment on the reactions and online targettig he has been subjected to for raising the issue of the mass vilification of the Muslim connunity even as the nation is trying to cope with the Covid19 pandemic.

“Yesterday, 28 April 2020, I issued a tweet on my twitter handle. Nothing more should be added to this tweet as done by some media establishments.

This tweet is in the background of how the issues of Muslims have been dealt with in our country, be it lynching, riots, media bashing or redressal of their problems in political and administrative processes.

I have not complained against my country to any foreign government or organization nor I intend to do so in future. I am a patriot to the core and I have always defended my country abroad. However, at the same time I have always been vocal about the problems in our country like any other country but, I also believe that we and our political, constitutional and judicial system are capable of tackling them. 

I have always defended my country in Arabic media and on channels like Al Jazeera where my defence of India during the Kargil War is still remembered by many in the Arab world. When Kuwait’s Al-Mujtama magazine asked me years ago to write about Indian Muslims’ viewpoint about Kashmir, the editor was shocked to see my article as it defended the Indian position and said that the Indian Muslims do not support secession of Kashmir from India. That article was published along with a rejoinder by a person in Pakistan and that was the last time I wrote for that magazine.

According to my knowledge, Indian Muslims have never complained against their country to outside powers. I, like other Indian Muslims, believe in rule of law, the Indian Constitution and the fine institutions our country has.”

He was also accused of having political affiliations with the Aam Admi Party (AAP), which currently forms the Delhi Government. However the commission, and any appointment to it is not made by the state government but by the Lt Governor who represents the Union Government. 

“I must make it clear that I am not and never was a member of Aam Admi Party (AAP) and the Commission I head is a statutory and independent body governed by the Delhi Minorities Commission Act 1999. AAP or its government in Delhi do not run the Commission and are not accountable for what the Commission does.”

He also reminded the TV anchors that the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom had also noted in its report that “religious freedoms in India deteriorated sharply last year as the government allowed “campaigns of harassment and violence” against Muslims and other religious minorities to continue.”

Dr Khan told Sabrang that his words were distorted by the news channels who spoke to him over the phone. “Many false statements/opinions have been attributed to me.  I will take appropriate legal steps available to me against them,” he said.

He has offered a simple solution to those who are opposing his words, and notices sent to raise concerns and seek answers from authorities: “stop lynchig, and discriminating against Muslims, and I shall stop asking these questions.”
 

Related 

Designate India as ‘Country of Particular Concern’, impose sanctions: USCIRF

Arab Solidarity is Welcome, But Indian Muslims Must Remain the Vanguard

Hate video calls for banning Muslims from Delhi colonies

Communal forces using Covid-19 as fodder to target minorities?

The post “I am a patriot to the core and I have always defended my country abroad:”  Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan Chairman, Delhi Minorities Commission appeared first on SabrangIndia.