‘Minorities should improve mutual ties for their safety’
In a significant development, Chairman of Hurriyat Conference (G), Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Tuesday said that the minorities needed to build a close rapport with one another to ensure their protection and start serious deliberations to consolidate their mutual relations.
Expressing solidarity with the victims of 1984 anti-Sikh carnage, said “Hindu fascism” in India had reached alarming proportions and minorities in the country were being treated as “second-class citizens.” He advised that “minority communities should improve mutual ties for their safety”.
Geelani termed the massacre of Sikhs in 1984, following the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, as a blot on the ‘so-called’ secular face of India.”
In a statement sent to media, Geelani said, “The killing of Sikhs was not a spontaneous reaction but a well-planned pogrom led by senior Congress leaders of that time. Sikhs were killed in an organized manner and even children and women were not spared,” Geelani said, adding, 27 years on, “those responsible for the killings were roaming free.”
“This proves that the majority community in India is free to unleash violence on the minorities, and doesn’t take into account the so-called secularism and democracy which India regularly boasts about,” he said.
“The life and property of minorities in India are unsafe; they are treated as second-class citizens,” Geelani said.
He said it was worrying that besides the majority community, the media, judiciary and armed forces were gradually coming under the influence of “fascist mentality”. “In future, this trend can prove to be extremely dangerous for the minorities living in India,” he warned.
Geelani said the important role of Muslims and Sikhs in the freedom struggle of India “has never been acknowledged.”
“History has been distorted and only the role of Hindu leaders in the freedom struggle is highlighted,” he said.
According to the statement, the Hurriyat chairman also shot a letter to Dal Khalsa leader Kanwar Pal Singh expressing his solidarity with the Sikh community. Geelani in his message said the Sikh community has always extended its moral support to the “cause of Kashmiris” and Sikh leaders have always raised their voice against the human rights violations in Kashmir.