Modi's silence on divisive campaigns cause of concern: Muslim body

Muslim organisation Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Saturday said while Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks of development, his silence on the divisive campaign and hate campaigns of party leaders and affiliated outfits is a great cause of concern.

Addressing a press conference here, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind secretary general Nusrat Ali also said that the government has made a few good announcements and austerity moves since it assumed office but still there was concern.

"A period of 100 days is very short to judge a government elected by people for five years. However, the initial trends are not good. It seems the government is working on two fronts - while PM Modi is talking about development, some leaders of his party and Sangh Parivar have opened aggressive hate campaign against Muslims and Modi is silent. It seems there is a silent understanding among them," he said.

"Jamaat is seriously concerned at the rise in hate campaign against minorities, particularly Muslims, since BJP came to power at the centre. There has since been a spate of communal incidents also (Saharanpur, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Kanpur etc.).

"At regular interval, leaders of BJP and Sangh Parivar have raked up contentious issues like Article 370 and Uniform Civil Code. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, in violation of the ethos of the Constitution, said that India is a Hindu Rashtra and all citizens of this country are Hindus," he said.

Another member Mohammad Salim Engineer claimed that by not mentioning the words like "Muslim" or "minorities" in his speeches, Modi wants to indicate as if minorities do not exist at all in the country.

"In the garb of slogans like 'Sab Ka Saath, Sab Ka Vikas', the PM wants to ignore the existence of the minority communities," he said.

Responding to questions, Jamaat leaders also said groups like Al Qaeda are doing disservice to Islam and Muslims.

Most of their messages and acts do not match with Islam, they said adding that there is strong apprehension that such groups are being used by anti-Islam forces.

However, on the announcement of the banned terror group to open its branch in India, Jamaat leaders expressed apprehensions that this may be used by country's intelligence agencies to target minority youths as has been the trend for past 10 years.