Don't blame Muslims for world terror: Expert Express News Service

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=253296

Pune, August 28: Terrorism is not a religious phenomenon and Muslims alone should not be blamed for the terrorist attacks taking place in the country, said noted secularist Prof Ram Punyani in his talk on communalism organised by Talk Club at Anjuman-E-Khairul Islam's (AKI) Poona College of Arts Commerce and Science on Tuesday.

Analysing the rise in terror activities around the globe, Punyani said people were taking up terrorism in response to the injustice being meted out to them, rising communalism and the fight for oil.

"Terrorism is a symptom of the disease that needs to be addressed in an unbiased manner," he said.

Punyani said politics should not be mixed with religion, as the latter stood for cultivating strong moral values and high ideals amongst the masses. "Instead, religion has been deliberately exploited to drive a wedge into the country by engineering riots leading to death and destruction," Punyani said, adding that there was an institutionalised bias against minorities.

Referring to riots, Punyani said several innocent people had been killed in mindless communal violence during the past decades, while it was generally seen that the culprits had gone unpunished while the poor were maximally killed. "Several myths about Muslims relating to history, demographics and about the polity of terror continue to circulate and confuse the masses till date," he said.

Punyani also slammed the saffron forces for creating confusion about the growth of the Christian population in the country owing to activities of their missionaries. "Christianity in India is 1,950 years old, yet there are only 2.30 million Christians, which is a relatively small figure," he said. "Forces inimical to secularism are bent on attacking the missionaries which should be strongly condemned and stopped."

He lamented ghettoisation that was once again engulfing Indian Muslims due to fear psychosis in their minds. "It is giving rise to retrograde tendencies in the community, especially amongst the youth. Such tendencies are likely to reverse any progress made by Muslims."