HYDERABAD: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen's (AIMIM) firebrand leader and state legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi announced before a gathering of supporters here on Thursday that the party headquarters, Darussalam, had become a capital of Muslims just like Delhi is the capital of India.
He was speaking at a public meeting on the occassion of the 59th Revival Day of AIMIM at Darussalam.
Without hesitating to take the opportunity to attack opposition parties, the junior Owaisi said: "while Delhi is the capital of India, Darussalam has became the capital of Muslims."
The controversial leader said the Modi government had been diverting attention from important issues and, instead, was focusing on issues like donkey (gadha) Diwali, qabrastan and Burqa ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections.
Recalling the recent Bhopal espionage case in which BJP members with alleged links with Pakistani ISI were arrested, he said it showed the double standards of the government and alleged that seven Muslim undertrials were killed in a fake encounter in Madhya pradesh.
Taking potshots at the Congress rule, he said 50,000 communal riots had taken place then and Muslims were denied opportunities for a long time. It was MIM's pressure that forced the Telangana government to issue an order that Muslims be treated on a par with SCs and STs. "Only when there is political representation and reservation can their problems be tackled," he claimed.
Going further in his attack on the Congress, he said the recommendations made in the reports of the Sachar, Kundu and Ranganath Mishra committees, which were set up to study the socio-economic status of Muslims, were not implemented.