By TCN News,
Aligarh: The general body meeting of Aligarh Muslim University Teachers’ Association (AMUTA) has decided to contribute one-day salary as a token support to help the victims of the mindless violence unleashed on Muslims in Muzaffarnagar and its surrounding areas recently.
Dr. Aftab Alam, Honorary Secretary, said that AMUTA has also decided to send a fact-finding team of volunteers to document the entire incident that has left more than fifty thousand people, mostly from Muslim community, displaced and with devastated livelihood. He said that the AMUTA expressed deep sorrow and anguish over the communal violence, which went on for a week, in Muzaffarnagar and surrounding areas claiming more than 50 lives, while the actual number might be higher.
Alam said that a large number of people have been forced to live in the relief camps, terrified and trembling with bare minimum facilities. AMUTA has condemned the UP government for its failure to act in a timely manner to prevent the violence and allowing the tension to simmer leading to a full scale communal riot. It felt that strong preventive measures by the administration would have prevented the situation from escalating to this level.
The administration also failed to respond swiftly when the news of communal violence broke out and remained a mute spectator and abandoned its duty to provide security and protection to people during the communal carnage, it alleged. AMUTA has also condemned the UP government for abdicating its responsibility for relief and rehabilitation in the aftermath of the communal violence. It alleged that the communal violence was a deliberate attempt to create tension in the state ahead of the 2014 parliamentary elections in order to polarize the voters on communal lines.
AMUTA has demanded stern action against the officials who failed to discharge their duty of controlling the violence and register criminal cases against all who were responsible for instigating the people and those indulged in the violence. It also demanded a high level time bound enquiry by a joint team of National Human Rights Commission and National Commission for Minorities to ensure justice to the affected people. It demanded that all those found to be involved be tried and punished through a fast track court.
The teachers’ body has urged the government to provide adequate compensation for all losses suffered and employment to one of the family members of the victims. It demanded crafting of a coherent and credible rehabilitation plan for displaced persons. It further demanded re-construction/repair of all houses, Mosques, Madarsas, and other buildings damaged/destroyed during riots by the government at the earliest.
The general body appealed to the central government to enact the Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill which has been languishing in the Parliament since 2005.