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From: "chro chro chro" <chro@rediffmail.com> Date: Sun Jun 27, 2004 Subject: Play Safe: Gujarat Maulanas?? Message To Muslims Indian Express (Ahmedabad), June 26, 2004, Sat. Play safe: maulanas?? message to Muslims As police look for local terror contacts, community leaders advise people ???to be wary of strangers??. Express News Service Ahmedabad, June 25: TUCKED away in their ghettoes, Muslims were never as isolated as this. With maulanas now sending out a ??????play-safe???? message to their community, the divide in deeply divided Ahmedabad seems to be deepening. In a diktat issued recently, maulanas in the city have asked Muslims not to ??????entertain any strangers???? in their midst unless their credentials are checked properly. The message they??re sending out is clear: ??????Be careful whom you speak to. Don??t talk or share information with strangers. Refuse to entertain outsiders in your mohallas.???? What??s brought it on? Fear of the police knock on their door as the cops look for ??????local contacts???? each time they get a tip-off about militant activity or after an encounter. Now, following the June 15 encounter, in which four people were shot dead, and the cops looking for local contacts in that connection, the maulanas are unwilling to take any chances. ??????These are testing times for us. We don??t want to give anyone a chance to point fingers at us. I have asked all community members to be wary of strangers, not to give outsiders too much space to settle down even for a few hours,???? says Maulana Habib of Saraspur. Maulana Abdul Qayyum of Jama Masjid says: ??????You don't know who a stranger you helped might turn out to be. Our integrity is under continuous scrutiny. We don't want a stigma attached to us and the entire community blamed if even one of us helped terrorists, unknowingly. That??s why I have advised people, especially youths, not to keep contact with any outsider whose credentials are not checked and are not well-known to them.???? Qayyum says that as an added precaution he has advised them to be even careful of distant relatives who drop in suddenly and take an undue interest in local issues. ??????They have also been asked to report if anyone tries to gather information about local situations or tries to whip up communal passions,???? Qayyum says. ??????Five times till now police has pointed a finger at us. After the June 15 encounter, police claim there had to be a local contact because the terrorists and the girl Ishrat had visited before. After the Akshardham attack and Haren Pandya??s murder we were accused of providing local support to militants,???? says Farooq Dilliwala, a community leader, who coordinated with the maulanas to get the diktat declared. ??????We have nothing to do with these militant activities and no proof has been found yet of local support. But from our side we want to be absolutely careful,???? Dilliwala says. A couple of incidents reported by youths working with mosques in communally sensitive areas seems to have necessitated the diktat. ??????Youths attached to mosques have been receiving anonymous calls on their cellphones. The callers claimed to have come from Mumbai and were asking strange questions which raised the suspicion of the youths. They disconnected and reported to their maulanas. On checking it was found the calls were made from an STD booth near railway station. We suspect it was a set up by someone wanting to trap the youths for providing information to terrorists,????one maulana informed. In another instance, calls were apparently received from a Mumbai STD PCO booth. ??????The callers who give all sorts of names asked questions like ???what is happening in Gujarat? Why don't you do something??? The manner in which these calls were made raises suspicion that someone is desperately trying to establish that outsiders who want to create trouble are making local contacts and we are in league with them. All police needs are cell phone records to claim that we are in touch with these elements. So we are trying to be extra careful,???? the maulana continued. Who??s checking in? Guesthouses check NOW, guesthouses and small hotels in the vicinity of Kalupur railway station are tightening their guest registration procedures. A personal identification card or a proof with permanent address has to be produced at the reception before rooms are allotted. This is apart from the weekly list of guests that owners have been asked to send after the Akshardham attack, to city police commissioner??s office. ??????If you arrive by road, the vehicle??s registration number and driving license number is noted down besides checking proof of permanent address,???? says Sharif Mohammed Sheikh, manager of Hotel Residency near Kalupur police station. ??????We also try to ascertain what is the relationship if a man is accompanied by a woman,???? says Sheikh. Although, business is bad for most of these guesthouses which believed in asking no questions if an occasional guest arrived, cops coming in frequently with photographs or sketches of criminals have now forced them to take these measures. Confederation of Human Rights Organizations (CHRO) 3, Rams' Cottage Ambalathumukku, Pettah Thiruvananthapuram-695 024 (Ph.: 0471-2476262) Web: www.humanrightsindia.com www.humanrightskerala.com |
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| << June27, 2004 - [India Thinkers Net] CHRO updates on the Gujarat encounter |
June28, 2004 - [India Thinkers Net]A sorry state of affairs >> |
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