One more incident of excesses on Tablighi Jamaat people has come to
light. According to a report in Inquilab of November 21, a group of Tablighi
Jamaat was travelling from Mysore to Hazrat Nizamuddin in Train No. 12781.
There were only 14 persons in this group. When the group reached Agra station,
some persons got into their compartment; they had handcuffs in their hands.
Tablighi Jamaat people say that they were policemen in plain clothes. According
to them, “They suddenly tied our hands with handcuffs and started misbehaving
with us. Then we were made to get down at Mathura station. There were policemen
belonging to Haryana and U.P. in large numbers. At the station they video-graphed
us; then we were carried to another police station nearby and beaten bitterly,
abused, asked provocative questions, stripped, tied our legs, made to lie on
our bellies, dipped in water….” The report has mentioned some more serious
charges levelled by the victims, the reproduction of which is not proper. This entire
statement has been attributed to Ameer of (Tablighi) Jamaat Hafiz Jameel Ahmad
Sahib.
Why no notice was taken
This report of the Urdu daily is erroneous with regard to language and presentation.
Details of the report could not be ascertained from any other source. According
to this report, the incident took place on October 21 and the report was
published in the November 21 issue of the daily. Then the details of the
incident were revealed to the media reporters in the office of Rashtriya Ulama
Council by the party’s National Secretary Lal Devendra Singh. The report also
carries photographs of a group of the victims. As a whole the report does
maintain that excesses were perpetrated on some Tablighi Jamaat people, and the
incident is very serious in nature. But it is surprise that this incident of
government atrocities and excesses on the innocents was not mentioned anywhere.
Urdu press and Muslim circles also did not take notice of this incident in a
manner they should have done. Perhaps it is because this is not the first
incident of this nature with Tablighi Jamaat people. Earlier also many
incidents took place. This process has been going on for a long time. According
to a government circular in many cities, Tablighi Jamaat people have to report at
local police stations their arrival and departure. At many places they are
body-searched and misbehaved.
There was a time
There was a time when Tablighi Jamaat was considered harmless and
indeed it was and is even today harmless because it strives for propagation and
reformation only among Muslims. Therefore the government and its agencies used
not to touch them. Contrary to it, an organisation which persuaded the Muslims to
act upon Islam viz. the Qur’ān and Sunnah and to shape their life system in
accordance with it. When during the Emergency a coercive ban was imposed on
this organisation, the community kept silence and maintained indifference. It was
perhaps because the Jamaats, organisations and institutions considered that the
ban was imposed on that organisation and they were safe. Not only this, certain
religious organisations even wrote books to condemn that organisation. The policymakers
in the country gathered that the community is simpleton. Therefore they started
acting upon the policy that had been adopted after the Independence. Eminent Muslim
educational institutions were raided; then Ahle Hadees people were targeted. Then,
linking the relationship of Taleban with the Deobandi thought, eyes were kept
on madrasas, and now for the last some years Tablighi Jamaat has been watched. And
it is being done at a time when a campaign to character-assassinate Islam and the
Muslim Ummah is on the world over, and the organisations and practising Muslims
are being targeted. Therefore, this misbehaviour with the Tablighi Jamaat
people should be taken in the backdrop of governmental and political treatment
with the Muslims.
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