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Assam Muslims protest against harassment by BJP

GUWAHATI (India): More than 50,000 Muslims in remote north-East India on Saturday accused the country's ruling Hindu nationalists of harassing them for allegedly helping militants in the troubled region.

The protestors, who gathered in Guwahati, capital of the state of Assam, said Muslims and Islamic schools were under increasing attack in the region, and vowed to safeguard their rights.

Maulana Asad Madani, the chief of the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind, the apex body of Muslim organisations in India, accused India's ruling Hindu nationalist BJP and allied groups of unfairly targeting Islamic seminaries, called "Madrassas", in the area.

"It is an insult by the BJP and the Assam government to the Muslim community to indulge in such false propaganda", he said, adding that Muslim seminaries were being branded as "shelters" for anti-state elements.

"Let the authorities prove the charges....If there are any such instances, we shall be the first to help the government in throwing out such anti-national elements", he said.

Speakers at the meeting, attended by top religious leaders from all over India, said the rights of the Muslims were at stake as the BJP government was trying to create a wedge between the majority Hindus and religious minorities.

"The time has come to launch a movement to safeguard our fundamental and religious rights which at the moment are threatened", Tahir Mahmud, a former chairman of the Indian Minorities Commission, said.

Muslim leaders expressed fears that genuine Indian Muslims in Assam were in danger of being thrown out of the region on charges of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

India's remote north-east has been wracked by separatist and ethnic rebel violence over the past 50 years. Illegal migration of Muslims from neighbouring Bangladesh has acted as a catalyst to religious and political tension. AFP