By India Tomorrow Correspondent,
New Delhi, 21 March 2014: While strongly condemning death threats to eminent Delhi High Court lawyer Mehmood Pracha, Muslim community leaders here on Friday expressed anger over the silence and inaction of the central and state governments despite the mobile numbers used to send the threat calls and messages having been published in different sections of the media.
“Till date, Police or Union and State home ministries have failed to take notice of this grave development let alone provide security to the brave advocate who has taken on forces which have destroyed lives of thousands of innocent Muslim youth in the name of fighting terror,” said All India Muslim Majlise Mushawarat (AIMMM), an umbrella body of Indian Muslim organizations.
Adv. Pracha is said to be fighting around 70 terror cases wherein scores of Muslim youths are accused. They include some high profile cases including the Israeli envoy’s car blast case and Himayat Beg case of German bakery blast of Pune. He has told a section of media that in last 20 days he has got threat calls from as many as 17 mobile numbers – one of the threat calls came from one Ravi Pujari who is said to be an underworld don.
In February 2010, Adv. Shahid Azmi, who was also fighting several terror cases of Muslim youths, was gunned down in his Mumbai office by some unknown criminals.
Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan, president, All India Muslim Majlise Mushawarat alleged Adv. Pracha is being threatened on behalf of police and other security agencies whose anti-Muslim bias, he said, is getting exposed with acquittals of several terror accused Muslim youths thanks to hard efforts of lawyers like Pracha and Azmi.
“Police have got scared as Adv. Pracha demanded that police officers who deliberately implicated innocent Muslim youths in terror cases and ignored real culprits should be arrested and prosecuted,” said Dr. Khan while addressing a press conference here at the head office of Mushawarat.
Expressing anger of the silence of the government despite the brazen threat calls, he said the silence exposes the double standard.
“If such threats were given to Narendra Modi or LK Advani, the police would have swung into action within hours,” said Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan who is also Editor of English fortnightly The Milli Gazette.
Mohammad Salim Engineer, Secretary, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind said such double standard in police and government agency would jeopardise integrity and safety of the country. “The situation has put a question before the country: Will it remain a secular country or become a fascist nation.
Mujtaba Farooq, president, Welfare Party of India said the state of Maharashtra has become notorious for extra-judicial killings and haven for gangsters. “Who will save the country if police and security agencies become biased in terror probes?”
Addressing the pressmen, Akhlaq Ahmed, national coordinator of Association for Protection of Civil Rights said Adv. Pracha is not the first Muslim lawyer who has got threat. “Several Muslim lawyers defending terror accused in different stats have been threatened and some have been eliminated,” he said.
Maulana Ataur Rahman Qasmi, director, Shah Waliullah Institute said that lawyers were not threatened during British regime even though they were defending several freedom fighters in court cases.
Dr. Tasleem Ahmed Rahmani, president, Muslim Political Council of India, said Adv. Pracha is the strongest Muslim lawyer in Delhi who has exposed lacunae in UAPA law and secured release of journalist Mohammad Kazmi who was made an accused in Israeli embassy car blast case.
The Muslim leaders demanded the government to provide protection to Adv. Pracha. Otherwise, “the Muslim community will hold the Union and Maharashtra state home ministers and the Mumbai police commissioner personally responsible if anything untoward happened to the brave advocate…” they said in a written statement signed by these leaders.
