By Mumtaz Alam and Abu Zafar, India Tomorrow
Malerkotla (Punjab), 24 Feb 2014: With an aim to defeat right wing forces in their sinister design to communalise murder of a minor belonging to Jain community in Punjab’s Malerkotla town, a civil group is organizing a communal harmony convention here on 02 March.
Noted activist and head priest of Surajkund Temple in Ayodhya Yugal Kishor Shastri, journalist Ajit Sahi, President of All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan and Sikh Scholar Dr. Inder Singh Ghagga will participate in this convention.
11-year-old Vidhu Jain was set ablaze on September 30 last year by two unidentified men in Malerkotla. He succumbed to injuries while on way to Ludhiana from a local hospital.
It was reported that three days before the incident, he had some argument with the unidentified perpetrators and he didn’t know their names but could identify them. All residents of the town condemned the incident and demanded justice for the boy and his family, but some right wing elements began trying to communalise the environment of Punjab, especially Malerkotla putting blame for the murder of Jain boy on Muslims. Though the police had neither identified the killers nor arrested them.
Hindu right wing groups called for bandhs in several parts of the Punjab state and released a video purportedly of the minor boy screaming after being set ablaze inviting hateful comments against Muslims. A local right wing group Hindu Nyay Peeth posted several press cuttings on facebook and gave a call for Hindu unity.
They did this all despite the fact that the police were yet to identify and nab the killers and consequently the state government handed over the case to Central Bureau of Investigation.
The communal harmony convention is being organized by Al-Furqan Foundation and Association of Youth Affairs.
Talking to India Tomorrow, Aejaz Farooque, director of Al-Furqan Foundation says: “Malerkotla is known for communal harmony and brotherhood for long time. Even during the partition in 1947 when entire Punjab was burning, there was peace in Malerkotla. But soon after the murder of Vidhu Jain and even before the Police investigation could make any conclusion, outfits of Sangh Parviar started to instigate communal flare-up in whole Punjab including Malerkotla.”
Asked why Sangh Parivar wants to create communal tension in Malerkotla – a Muslim dominated area – and in all Punjab, Farooque says: “The coming Lok Sabha election could be one reason. To make Narendra Modi prime minister of the country, they want to polarize votes on communal lines. For this purpose, they are doing this dirty politics of communalism.”
Farooque hopes that majority of Hindus are not with these groups and they want to maintain communal harmony in Malerkotla. He informed that local Hindus are also supporting the communal harmony convention.
