Interview with Abu Asim Azmi

Born in Manjir Patti, Azamgarh on 8th August 1955, Abu Asim Azmi is the voice of North Indians in Mumbai, the Member of Legislative Assembly and state president of Samajwadi Party, Maharashtra. Azmi demand all innocent muslim boys arrested in Malegaon and Hyderabad blast should be released right away!

Spoke to Asim Khan on Secularism, terrorism, muslims and politics.

Q: Now, Swami Aseemanand has accepted the guilt and confessed the involvement of Hindu outfits in Mecca Masjid blast, how do you feel?

AAA: This is a national shame; it shows the real face of terrorism and proves how our investigative agencies right from the State government to ATS and CBI were failed in finding the real culprits. Since very day Muslims are denying any involvement in Malegaon and Hyderabad blasts but the investigative agencies imposed it.

Q: Since the day one you are raising the voice on the terrorism issue, why?

AAA: After 1992-93 Mumbai riots and blasts I was arrested and was jailed under TADA for a year and 10 days. I understated how much it pains when an innocent is implicated for something he never did.

Q: Do you think the investigative agencies and government is doing it deliberately?

AAA: I have many a times raised voice against it even in the parliament that the Maharashtra government, police and ATS have just closed their eyes from Hindu terror outfits. And in cases of Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad it deliberately arrested innocent Muslim boys, illegally detained and tortured them. We have many a times protested against it but no one even noticed to our pleads. Since last five years innocent Muslim boys are in jail for Malegaon blast, nobody even bothered how much their families are suffering and in what state these poor people are living. But now there is a sigh of relief with Asemanand’s confession.

Q: With Aseemanand’s confession the reality has come out, what do you think the next step should be?

AAA: I feel, first of all government should release all the innocent boys detained for 2006 Malegaon blast. The Union and state government should say sorry to innocent boys and their families for ruining their lives. The government should also compensate them; I demand that the government should pay at least 25 lakh rupees to each one of them. The government should also arrange employment for them as they have been jailed for years and have lost their careers. I also demand that the government should take stern action against the officials, who implicated innocent boys and deliberately tried to misdirect the investigations.

Q: Do you think the government will accept your demands, if not then what?

AAA: I don’t think that the government will accept it easily although it should… Because in this case the police and the government both are very much involved, so in this regard we have just two options, first we can go to the court but it requires a lot of many and time, else we can start a mass movement. But for a movement unity is required but the government agents in the community will definitely try to hamper it. But if our hearts are clean and wishes are pure Allah will help us, so I call all the institutions and the public to come ahead and support us for the right cause to deliver justice to illegally detained innocents.

Q: Muslim upliftment is one amongst your basic political agendas, where do you think the community stands now?

AAA: I feel in Maharashtra politically muslims are in a mess. They don’t know to whom they should support as at one side they have Congress and NCP government at another Shiv Sena-BJP. Muslims are scared of saffron polity of BJP-Shiv Sena and hence their vote goes to the Cong-NCP camp. When it comes to justice Muslims are being implicated and are tortured for no crime, Maharashtra is almost in the same stage as Gujarat is. With the enforcement of TADA Act in the country the muslims were tortured a lot. But the moment government realized that TADA act is insane, the government pleaded forgiveness to the community but with in no time came up with crueler POTA Act, which was again used against the muslims.

Innocent, highly educated boys were arrested under POTA act. Khwaja Yunus was detained under POTA Act, he was killed in police lock up and the state government did not take any action against the culprit officers. And then comes a long list of fake encounters. Every time it happened, we raised our voice, which nobody heard. If we see today many encounter specialists are behind the bars as the government say they are working for underworld. This is what we are saying since long time. I ask who killed these innocent boys? RSS-VHP or the secular government.

Q: Do you think to keep our secularity safe; the government should ban the communal outfits?

AAA: I want to ask those who are making people fool by calling themselves as secular, aren’t they worst than the saffron parties? If SIMI was banned by the Vajpayee government it was first implemented by the so-called secular state government of Maharashtra, run by Cong-NCP. In 2001, SIMI’s office at Kurla was raided, Knives and spoons, which were kept for religious sacrifices on Bakri Eid were detained. The agencies shouted that these weapons were kept to create massacre. But when Trishuls and swords are being distributed and the Rifle trainings camps are run by the VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal no one notices. Abhinav Bharat and Sanatan Sanstha’s are creating bombs nobody even took an eye towards it. SIMI is banned but they are not, why? Is this the secular government?

Q: Do you think education and employment is basic problems of the Muslims?

AAA: Definitely… but since 2001, with the ban on SIMI and some other Muslim organizations, the investigative agencies started implicating highly educated muslim boys, such as engineers and doctors. Muslim boys are facing discrimination in finding a job, be it either in government offices or in private firms. When there is a need to implement on the Sachchar Committee’s suggestions we also strongly believe that there is a need to implement on Sri Krishna Commission report too, we can’t neglect any.