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New Delhi:
Disappointed by her continuous silence on the plight of Rohingya
Muslims and the violence against them, the Indian
Muslim leaders Wednesday urged the Mayanmar opposition leader Aung
Suu Kyi to take a stand on the issue, failing which, they said, her
struggle for restoration of democracy would be incomplete.
"We demand Ms. Kyi to come out of
her cocoon and take a stand on the Rohingya issue. Ms. Kyi’s fight
for democracy will remain incomplete as long as such a large
number of persecuted people live within her own country", the
Muslim leaders said in a joint statement.
Suu Kyi is on a six-day visit to
India beginning Tuesday. The visit is her first trip to the
country, where she studied, after a quarter century. She is
visiting India two years after elections in Myanmar that brought a
civilian reform-minded regime to power.
In India, she is accorded the
treatment of a head of state as a result of her long struggle and
suffering for democracy in Mayanmar which also won her a Nobel
Peace Prize.
"If Ms. Kyi continues to neglect the
plight of the Rohingyas, we will be compelled to draw the
conclusion that her fight for democracy is fake and that she is
only concerned about the superiority and control of certain groups
in Mayanmar", they added.
The statement is signed by
Dr.Zafarul-Islam Khan (President, All India Muslim Majlis-e
Mushawarat), Mujtaba Farooq (Convenor, Coordination Committee of
Indian Muslims), Muhammad Ahmad (Political Secretary, Jamaat-e
Islami Hind), Maulana Abdul Wahab Khilji (President, Islahi
Movement of India), Dr Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas (Member, Working
Committee, Muslim Personal Law Board), Dr Taslim Rahmani
(President, Muslim Political Council of India), Prof. M.H.
Jawahirullah (Tamilnadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhgham - TMMK), Lateef
Mohd. Khan (Gen Secretary, Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee,
Hyderabad) and others.
"We are pained to see that Ms. Kyi
has disappointed many by her continuous silence and ambivalent
attitude towards a section of her compatriots known as “Rohingyas”
who mainly live in Rekhine province, formerly known as Akyab", the
Muslim leaders said.
"We also appeal to all Indian
leaders who will meet Ms. Kyi during this visit to raise this
issue with her and to apprise her about the Indian sentiments and
the need to do justice to the persecuted Rohingyas", they said.
The Rohingyas, who are Muslims, have
been termed by a UN report as the most persecuted religions
community in the world.
Under a highly questionable law passed in 1982 by the Burmese
military government, they were summarily deprived of their
nationality unless they prove that their forefathers were living
in Burma back in 1832, which is a most oppressive law found
anywhere in the world.
Since last June, they are being
attacked, their villages burnt and they are forced to live in
refugee camps in their own country or flee to Bangladesh which
already has a large number of Rohingyas who fled earlier during
the past few decades due to acute persecution and oppression.
As a result of this exodus, now
there are large groups of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh,
Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia. This is a
matter of shame for Mayanmar in general and the for the Nobel
laureate crusader for democracy in particular.
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