Friday, March 29, 2024

No discrimination against minorities in India: Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to European Union team

“There is no discrimination against minorities in India,” Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Thursday told a visiting European Union delegation.

Naqvi also told the delegation that there is “no major incident of communal violence in the past seven-eight years,” a source close to the minister said to Indian Express.

In New Delhi, the six-member EU delegation met Naqvi and raised concerns of discrimination against minorities in the country. The delegation was led by the EU Special Representative for Human Rights Eamon Gilmore and Ambassador of the European Union to India Ugo Astuto.

Gilmore expressed his concern about recent episodes of violence against Muslims in India.

In several parts of India in the past few months, hate speech and calls for genocide against Muslims have been made by Hindutva groups. Many Muslim settlements including houses, shops, and mosques were vandalised in the Hindutva attack, and BJP controlled government bodies’ targeted demolitions. Hindu monks affiliated with Hindutva groups have threatened to rape Muslim women and online abusers have created apps to put them on “auctions.”

The percentage of minorities in Union government jobs, “which was below 4 percent in 2014, has now significantly increased to above 10 percent”, under the BJP government, minister claimed.

“The delegation met me and I apprised them of the socioeconomic and educational empowerment for all communities with dignity, without any discrimination. They did raise concerns about the letter written by the bureaucrats (to the Prime Minister), and about communal violence against minorities,” Naqvi said to Indian Express. He went on to say: “But I have clarified to them that there has been no major incident of communal violence in the past seven-eight years. There have been some isolated incidents, and in these the Modi government has taken strong and effective action against the perpetrators, without consideration of religion, caste or community.”

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