Kashmir’s chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Friday urged authorities to ensure the safety of Kashmiris outside the valley.
Addressing the Friday congregation at Srinagar’s historic Jamia Masjid, Mirwaiz expressed deep anguish and concern over the assault using iron rods on 8-year-old Kashmiri shawl vendor Tabish and his brother, Danish, in Uttarakhand’s Vikas Nagar area, causing grievous injuries to them.
The Mirwaiz said the incident reflects the disturbing pattern of communal profiling and hostility faced by ordinary Kashmiris outside Jammu & Kashmir.
“Similar incidents of harassment and attacks on Kashmiri traders, labourers and students have recently been reported from Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and other parts of the country,” he said, adding that thousands of Kashmiris travel to different states during the winter months to earn an honest livelihood, and such targeting of vulnerable people must stop immediately.
The moderate separatist leader said that after such incidents, the safety risk to Kashmiri students, traders, professionals and others studying and working in various parts of India increases, causing anxiety and fear among them and their families.
He urged the authorities to take this matter seriously and ensure the safety of Kashmiris outside.
The chief cleric also expressed serious concern over the police “profiling exercise” in the Valley, which he said seeks extensive and intrusive information about mosques, their management committees, imams, and those associated with places of worship.
Mirwaiz Farooq said it is a very disconcerting matter and all members of Mutahida Majlis-e-Ulema (MMU)- an amalgam of prominent religious organisations in Jammu and Kashmir- have asked the authorities to stop it.
He said that during his recent visit to Delhi on the demise of a Kashmiri Pandit social worker, Pandit Bhushan Bazaz, he met prominent Muslim leaders and ulema, including Maulana Arshad Madani and Maulana Mahmood Madani of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, and apprised them of the situation.
“They too expressed utmost disapproval of and concern over the issue and its implications,” the Mirwaiz said and added that MMU will soon convene a meeting of its constituent members and senior religious leadership to deliberate on the matter, and a collective course of action that can be taken if this exercise is not stopped.
