GUWAHATI: Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind president Maulana Mahmood Madani on Tuesday asked Assam’s BJP-led government to deport foreigners, if any, and expressed concerns that a community was being targeted in the ongoing eviction drives in the state.
Addressing a press conference, he alleged that people were being divided on the basis of religion to grab power.
“Particular slogans are being raised against a section. They are being called ‘Miya,’ ‘unknown,’ ‘doubtful,’ and derogatory words are being used. That attitude is more painful than the barbaric manner in which the eviction is being carried out,” Madani said.
“If someone is doubtful, there is a way to clear the doubt. Why do you not adopt that method? If there is a foreigner, why do you not deport them? We are not opposing that. We cannot tolerate a foreigner staying here,” he further stated.
He added that if Indians had been evicted, there should have been plans for their rehabilitation, which the Supreme Court had stated not in one case but in multiple cases.
A seven-member delegation of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, led by Madani, visited Goalpara on Monday. A massive eviction drive was recently carried out in this lower Assam district to clear encroachment at the Paikan Reserve Forest. Over 1,000 families had settled there.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma threatened that Madani would be arrested if the latter crossed the limits.
“Who is Madani? He has no value,” Sarma thundered when a journalist asked him about the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind chief.
“Madani has strength when Congress is in power. He has no strength when BJP is in power. He will be arrested if he crosses the limits,” Sarma said.
He warned that if “unknown” people occupied lands in forests, village grazing reserves and professional grazing reserves, they would be evicted. He said the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind delegation by now had a fair idea about it.
Samujjal Bhattacharya, chief advisor to All Assam Students’ Union, called Madani the protector of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and fundamentalists.
“Madani’s activities are anti-national. He is now visiting places in Assam. The government should take strong action against those who are working in favour of illegal Bangladeshis and fundamentalists, and against the nation,” Bhattacharya demanded.
Without taking the name of Delhi-based activist and former Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed, he said a woman had visited Assam recently and spoken in favour of the Bangladeshis, and then after returning to New Delhi, she spoke very badly about Assam.
“Since the time of the Assam Agitation (of 1980s), some people have been trying to hatch a conspiracy and foment tension on the Bangladeshi issue,” Bhattacharya further stated.