 Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan's statement that radical Popular Front of India (PFI) was aiming to convert the southern Indian state into a 'Muslim country', has evoked strong protests from various quarters. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), a partner of the Congress-led opposition United Democratic Front, termed his remark an insult to the entire Muslim community in the state.
| "It is a besmirching without parallel!" |
The Congress has described it politically motivated. The CM had reportedly made the statement at a press conference in New Delhi on Saturday in the wake of arrests of several PFI activists in connection with the chopping off of the hands of a college lecturer after he had prepared a question paper that allegedly carried a blasphemous question.
"Achuthanandan's charge that the PFI was trying to encourage youth from other communities to marry Muslim girls in order to increase the Muslim population in the state is the language of Hindutva man", IUML General Secretary, P.K. Kunhalikuty said.
He told reporters at Calicut on Sunday that he could reply to the chief minister in the same language. "We are maintaining restraint because we do not want to destroy the obvious communal harmony prevailing in the state", he added. He said that both the PFI and People's Democratic Party (PDP) led by Abdul Nasser Madhani had become a liability for the community. "Because of them, mosques and other Muslim institutions were being raided by the police".
"If the PFI was indulging in activities as alleged by Achuthanandan, then stringent action should be taken against them', he said, adding 'but, to accuse the community as a whole is in bad taste".
He pointed out that the CPM had aligned with such organisations in the last Assembly elections in order to weaken the IUML. "That way the CPM is responsible for promoting extremism in the state", Kunhalikutty said.
Jamaa-e-Islami chief Arif Ali has also expressed the fear that Achuthanandan's charge would weaken the effort from the community to isolate the extremist forces. He pointed out that the chief minister had talked like a Sangh Parivar spokesman.
Achuthanandan had earlier courted controversy by saying that the Congress was promoting Muslim and Christian communalism in the state.
| Is there no end to the outrage? |
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