Milli Council writes to PM and UPA chief (July 29, 2008)

New Delhi, July 29. The All India Milli Council has written the following letter to the Prime Minister and the UPA Chairperson. We are publishing it for public information:


Dr. Manmohan Singh

Prime Minister of India
New Delhi

Hon'ble Sir,

This is to share our horror and sense of grief at the loss of life and property in the serial blasts in Karnataka and Gujarat.

The quick succession in which the blasts came in the two states is stunning. More than grief and outrage, it is time for us to ensure it does not recur.

For quite sometime (we way be pardoned for reiterating the point) we have this haunting feeling that we are not able to stop such violence because we have somehow been avoiding thinking out of the box.

With old habits of thought we may not be able to break fresh ground. Everytime a tragedy like this strikes we display the same old knee-jerk response. As if on a cue, in a reflexive manner, the same hackneyed phrases starts getting spouted: "Simi, Huji, Laskhar…"

We think it requires far more patient, painstaking and sustained investigation before we can really be able to come up with a public declaration of who has done it. We strongly recommend a judicial commission to examine all such cases that occurred over the last 10 years.

We are sure that hasty pronouncements only deflect attention from other suspected groups of malign nature. The "Muslim" groups are not the only ones capable of such vicious deeds. In the past we have seen others also who have committed such acts. We also don't regard foreign intelligence agencies above suspicion in such matters.

Coming in the run-up to general elections as the blasts do, there could be a lot of political implications that deserve careful attention. We have also to ask the pertinent question as to "who stands to gain" from such attacks.

With this we hope that investigations will include all probable groups and individuals rather than focussing on the usual suspects alone. Only comprehensive and fresh thinking will yield any results in our endeavour to put an end to such violence.

We hope the government will order a judicial commission to have a more comprehensive investigation and include all probable suspects, not just the "Muslim" groups. To get results fresh thinking is imperative. We hope that this point will be noted.

With regards,

Yours sincerely,

(Dr. M. Manzoor Alam)
General Secretary

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