A Convention for Rights of the Muslims was organized in Mangalore on October 27. The Convention organised by the Mangalore District Committee of the CPI(M) demanded the immediate implementation of the Sachar Commission report which, among others, suggested 10% reservation for Muslims and sub-plan in the five year plans for the minorities. The Party was also making a list of Muslims who have been acquitted in terrorism-related cases after having spent more than 5 years in jail. This report would be presented to the President to press for their demand for accountability of security agencies, compensation and rehabilitation of those arrested.
CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, addressing the Convention said that the convention was "...to get together non-Congress secular parties and express our opposition to the rising communalism." He said that the convention was all the more relevant now as the RSS had decided to fully back the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
"For the Congress, Muslims represent votes.....for the RSS and the BJP, their version of democracy is the rule of the Hindu majority," he said. Issues such as cow slaughter, assaults on Muslims talking to Hindu women and patriarchal notions of women as property were being used to whip up communal tensions and further harass minorities. He cited the example of Muzaffarnagar in this context.
Apart from State Secretary of Karnataka CPI(M) G.V.Sriram Reddy, senior writer Sara Aboobacker also participated in the convention.
October 28, 2012