IMPAR urges NSA Doval to intervene to stop harassment of Dr Zafrul Islam

Nov 21, 2020

New Delhi: Indian Muslims for Progress and Reforms (IMPAR) has written a letter to National Security Adviser Ajit Doval demanding his intervention to stop harassment and persecution of well known scholar and former chairman of Delhi Minorities Commission Dr Zafrul Islam Khan who has been slapped with cases of sedition and funding of terror.

The apex body of over a 1000 prominent Muslims has sought a meeting with Mr Doval to brief him on the matter.

IMPAR said these cases were the result of gross distortion of Dr Islam’s statements and some vicious and false complaints. It underlined to Mr Doval that there was a widespread feeling in the community that the scholar was being targeted due to his proactive role as head of the Delhi Minorities Commission.

The letter noted that first, Dr Islam was booked under sedition laws on an FIR which was based on distortion of of his tweets by certain news channels during the peak of Corona Markaz Jihad hysteria created by a section of the media, though he later accepted his mistake and apologised for his tweets. But recently on 29-11-2020 the NIA raided his house and the office of Charity Alliance, headed by him for alleged “funding of terror in J&K”.

His personal, family and office mobiles, laptops and hard disks of desktops and miscellaneous papers were seized during the raid which was conducted on the basis of an FIR in which neither his nor his NGO’s names are mentioned. The Charity Alliance, is a small NGO which did little relief work in Kashmir only during the floods of 2014. Apart from this, his NGO has no work in J&K. Outside J&K, it offers mainly educational and medical help, said the letter signed by President IMPAR Dr MJ Khan.

”There is no question of Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan or his NGO, Charity Alliance, ever supporting terror or separatism in J&K or elsewhere. He is on record saying and writing repeatedly that he is against the separatism in J&K. It is on record that Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan was the first in India to condemn ISIS, AlQaeda and Hizbut Tahrir outfits. The raid and the claim that Dr Khan or his NGO support terror or separatism in J&K is baseless and seems to have been a result of some gross misunderstanding or is based on some vicious and false complaints,” IMPAR President said.

Dr Khan said one may differ with Dr Islam’s contentions at times but he is a patriot to the core and can never go against the higher interests of his country. He pointed out that his father, noted scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, is a recipient of Padma Bhushan and was considered ”very close to late Vajpaee-ji.”

”Many of us in the community feel that due to his proactive role as Chairman, DMC, he is being unfairly targeted and harassed. We hope that your high office will intervene in the matter to provide justice and relief from unfair vendetta against him,” the IMPAR letter said.

—INDIA NEWS STREAM