Southern States - Kerala   

Hindu meet demand opposed

By Our Special Correspondent

KOZHIKODE MAY 21. The Jamaat-e-Islami Hind has taken objection to the demand of Hindu organisation for programmes to rehabilitate Hindu families which had to flee from coastal areas of Malappuram during and after the Moplah rebellion in 1921 because of religious persecution.

Talking to presspersons here today, K.A. Siddique Hassan, Amir, Kerala chapter of Jamaat-e-Islami Hindi, said such demands of Hindu organisations, made at a meeting here yesterday, would only serve to reopen old wounds and further vitiate the atmosphere of communal harmony in the State, which had already been disturbed by the Marad killings.

The Hindu leaders' convention had made such a demand only to counter a similar demand made by Muslim organisations to create the right conditions to enable Muslim families, which had fled Marad after the massacre of May 2, to return home.

Muslim leadership blamed

Prof. Hassan, however, admitted that the leadership of the Muslim community would not be able to disown responsibility for the Marad massacre.

The Amir said the most eloquent proof of the community leadership's failure in Marad was the fact that the Marad Juma Masjid was used as a storehouse of deadly weapons, which were used in the May 2 attack.

The managing committee of the mosque had to be held responsible for allowing it to be used as arms and bomb depot, he said.

The May 2 killing of nine persons (one of them a non-Hindu) also indicated that secular forces had failed to discharge their responsibilities in Marad. The Amir did not agree with the Government decision to takeover the Marad mosque and believed it should have been entrusted to the Wakf Board instead.

The Amir also demanded compensation to the family of Asghar, the lone non-Hindu among the nine persons killed in Marad. (The Government had denied compensation since he is one of the accused in the case and is believed to have been killed by mistake by members of his own gang).

Representatives of the Jamaat leadership led by Prof. Hassan had visited the Araya Samajam office in Marad in a bid to console the grief-stricken families of the victims of the massacre as well as to explore possibilities of the return of the Muslim families.

The Araya Samajam leaders in Marad had initially tried to discourage the Jamaat leaders from visiting the place.

Yet the Jamaat delegation made it and the Amir became the first Muslim leader to visit Marad after the May 2 massacre.

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