The Aalmi Jamiyatul Mashaiq, a representative body of religious heads, on Sunday, demanded that the Hyderabad city police impose a ban on the speeches of VHP leader Praveen Togadia.
In a statement, AJM chief advisor Moulana Syed Shah Mazhar Hussaini alleged that despite the prevailing volatile situation due to the
recent communal clashes in the Old City, Praveen Togadia was being allowed to make provocative speeches in different parts of the city.
Referring to one such speech, he said that Togadia had objected to the reservation being given to Muslims, and that he had tried to instigate SCs and STs, by falsely claiming that Muslims were being reservation benefits from their quota.
Mazhar Hussaini said that the Muslim community is being reservation not on religious lines but due to their poor economic conditions. However, SCs and STs, too, are given reservation benefits purely on religious grounds, he said. He said that a person belonging to other religions could not get reservation or other benefits that a SC or ST enjoys.
He also defended the Haj subsidy and other benefits that the minorities enjoy, and said that Togadia was mistaken that those sops were being given to Muslims from the taxes collected from the majority community.
He said that Muslims, too, were paying taxes regularly, and that thousands of Muslim NRIs were contributing to the foreign exchange that the country earns.
Demanding that the city police impose a ban on Praveen Togadia's speeches, Mazhar Hussaini said that provocative speeches with distorted facts would only affect the communal harmony in the city. (INN)