Centre failing in its duty to allay minorities' fear: J-K MLA

Independent MLA from Jammu and Kashmir Sheikh Abdul Rasheed, whose face was blackened by a fringe Hindu group yesterday, today said the Centre was failing in its duty to allay fears of minorities.
Talking to reporters at the Jammu and Kashmir House here, the MLA, who is popularly known as 'Engineer Rasheed', said intolerance has grown to the extent that whosoever speaks in a different voice is labelled as a Pakistani.
"The Modi government should stop calling everybody whosoever speaks truth, talks about atrocities and minorities as, Pakistani agent because humanity has to be beyond borders," he said.
Rasheed said today the country had more enemies within than outside the borders and the irony was that the central government was "running away from the real issue".

The Centre only wants to communalise the situation everywhere so that people are busy in hate-violence and the Government gets away with escalating prices of essential commodities, said the legislator, who has filed an application with Delhi Police for withdrawal of cases against those who had blackened his face at Press Club yesterday.
Taking on the Sangh Parivar, he said if they are talking of respecting sentiments of majority in India "why do they forgot it that Jammu and Kashmir is a Muslim majority state and their sentiments needs to be respected."
Rasheed said BJP and Shiv Sena leaders like Sakshi Maharaj and Uddhav Thackeray are keen to have a country with dominance of only one particular religion.

"This is creating atmosphere of fear and threat everywhere among minorities," he said.