Muslim organisations in the State will hold a dharna in front of the Secretariat on August 3 calling for the implementation of the Sachar Commission report that studied the social backwardness of Muslims in the country. This was decided at a meeting convened by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) here on Sunday.
According to sources, this is an indication of the toughening of their stand against the State government over the minority scholarship issue. A ‘Sachar Samrakshana Samiti’ has been formed under the leadership of IUML leader Syed Sadikali Shihab Thangal to take forward the agitation. Members of the samiti would meet Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan after the dharna to submit a charter of rights of the community.
Representatives of 14 organisations such as the Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulema, factions of the Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen, Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim Educational Society, Muslim Service Society and Wisdom Islamic Organisation, among others, were present at the meeting.
The meeting demanded that the government devise a special scheme to implement the Sachar panel recommendations, which were aimed only at the Muslim community. Schemes for other minority communities should be devised in proportion with their population. The leaders offered support to the proposals to be submitted by special panels set up for the purpose.
The participants raised objections to the Left Democratic Front government’s bid to create an impression that Muslims were taking away undue benefits. They pointed out that while all the other States had implemented the Sachar panel proposals, the Kerala government created another panel headed by Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leader Paloli Mohammed Kutty and devised an 80:20 scheme for minority scholarship. It was now being cancelled “under the guise” of a court order, they said.
The Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulema had convened another meeting on Saturday to discuss the same issue.
