Muslims meet to wipe out suspicion and bring about progress

In a significant development, leaders of the Muslim community belonging to various political parties held a two-day-long brainstorming session with senior bureaucrats and eminent personalities from the Muslim community in Karnataka at a resort on the outskirts of Mysore near here for the last two days.

The conference was organised by a voluntary organization in the wake of widespread concern over the suspicion about the Muslim community in the backdrop of terror attacks in the country. The meeting, which concluded yesterday, saw a galaxy of Muslim personalities thrash out an action plan for the all-round development of the community in various spheres of life.

Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha K Rehman Khan, former Federal Minister C K Jaffer Sharief, Karnataka’s Minister for Wakf and Haj Zameer Ahmed Khan and Minister for Labour Iqbal Ansari, besides a host of former Ministers belonging to the Congress as well as the JD (S), IAS and IPS officers and experts in various fields were in attendance at the meeting.

Many participants expressed their anguish over the targeting of innocent Muslims after terror strikes and the attempts made by the Sangh Parivar to brand madrasas as breeding grounds for terrorists. There was a consensus among the participants about the need to wipe out the suspicion about Muslim community.

But, a spokesperson for Centre for Community Development, Bangalore, which is organized the two-day conference, said the agenda of the meeting was to thrash out an action plan for creating political awareness, educational advancement, communal harmony, socio-economic development and empowerment of women among Muslims in the State.

During the conclave, sub-committees were formed for each of the subject that figured on the agenda and an action plan was finalized. The sub-committees were assigned responsibility for implementing the action plan within a time frame. The state panel will review the progress of the action plan from time to time.