This report of a conference

“New terror staging post…. The congregation of 5,00,000 people in a small town in Nepal has created fears of fresh attack on India… this ijtema in Krishnanagar town on Nepal's southern border with India in Uttar Pradesh, in which 5,00,000 people fromIndia, Nepal, the UK, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries participated, have taken everyone by surprise… particularly Mufti Dr Wasiullah Abbas of the Haramsharif in Makkah participated in it … this congregation was organised all of a sudden which took the Indian authorities by surprise…. terrorists from Pakistan can easily infiltrate such meets…. weapons, drugs and fake currency notes from Pakistan can be brought to India through Nepal…. A former officer of the Sashastra Seema Bal said, ‘Ever since Hindu Nepal declared itself a secular nation, we have been watching the rapid growth of Islamic religious activities in that country’… BJP MP Aditya Nath is also raising his voice against it… former member of Hizbul Mujahideen Liyaqat Shah also came to India through this route…. There is a long history of Islamic terrorists coming to India and then returning through Nepal…. RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) is keeping a close eye on it.”

The Report was prepared in Lucknow

This is a summary of the report; the original report is much more horrible. At the first stance, this report seems to be of the “Organiser” weekly, which is the organ of R.S.S and publishes writings of this kind regularly to which no one other than the Sangh readers pay attention. But this report has been published in a big mainstream English daily The Hindustan Times on 22 April; its lady reporter has prepared it while sitting in Lucknow. This is a very irresponsible and misleading report. This conference of Nepal was in fact an international conference on Dawah and education organised by Jamia Sirajul Uloom Salfia, which is a renowned educational institution of Ahle-Hadees sect in Jhandanagar, Nepal. The Hindustan Times report has expressed aspersion that people belonging to “hardline Ahle-Hadees sect” participated in this conference. The maximum number of participants would have been fifty thousand but the reporter has mentioned it as five lakh. A separate session was held in the conference for non-Muslims, in which they expressed their views and put questions as well. The lady reporter has tried to mislead her readers on this also.

Part of a well-hatched campaign

This report of The Hindustan Times is a masterpiece of lies and malice, in which efforts have been made to instigate and mislead people. It is part of the move that has been on for a long time to defame Islam, Muslims and their institutions. There is no scope here of nurturing the excuse that the lady reporter might have written all this due to ignorance; this is part of a well-hatched campaign to spread misapprehensions about Islam and Muslims and to demonize them. And this is the same malice about which the renowned English commentator Sagarika Ghose lamented in the 13 March issue of this very newspaper. Ms Ghose must have read this report as well which must have consolidated her view that media is formally running a move to demonize Muslims. Sagarika Ghose is an anchor, commentator and analyst, not a political or social activist. So the practical measures to make the situation better cannot be expected of her. But she can at least tell the news editor of The Hindustan Times to check such reports prior to publishing them just for the sake of the image of the newspaper. 

01/05/2013 khabar-O-Nazar by Parwaaz Rahmani, sehrozaDAWAT, translated by: Abu Yusuf