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New Delhi, 7 October (IANS) expressed concern over the alleged police cruelty and systemic targeting of the members of the community in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, alleging a systematic attempt to criminalize Muslim identity, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH).
Addressing the Monthly JIH Media Conference, Nadeem Khan, Secretary, Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), said, “What we are seeing is not law enforcement, but the decline of law.”
“The police have converted to harassers from the patrons,” he said.
In recent weeks, a wave of repression has read the state “I Love Muhammad” after peaceful expressions of love and reverence for Prophet Muhammad through posters and banners.
APCR and JIH demanded an immediate return of the politically motivated FIR, the release of prisoners without reliable evidence, and judicial accountability for excess of police, he said.
While the legitimate regulation of public processions is understood, the state overraction – raids, arrests, and displacement of posters inside the private premises also reflect a deliberate effort to make Muslim identity and devotion criminal, he said.
Khan said that many FIRs abandoned any mention of the slogan “I Love Muhammad”, instead calling out unrelated sections such as “illegal assembly” or “promoting enmity”, revealing a clear political design behind the Crackdown, Khan said.
He said that till 23 September, the police have registered 21 FIRs, filed across the country, including 38 arrests with 1,324 Muslims, including 10 FIRs in Bareilly alone.
“This is not a law-and-order response. It is a selective harassment,” he said,
Even minors have suffered custody for WhatsApp display pictures, and community leaders such as Maulana Tauqir Raza Khan have been booked again and again in many cases.
He said that bulldozer – once a symbol of progress – has become a symbol of collective punishment and political vengeance.
“It is now deployed as an additional judicial weapon to intimidate and destroy,” he said.
Referring to the data of the National Crime Records Bureau 2023, he said that Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest atrocities against women and the highest atrocities against Scheduled Castes (15,130 cases), showing that “the protective regime has silenced, while the state machinery has been rejuvenated to silence the minorities.”
Khan called citizens for beliefs to reject polarization. He said, “Turn the love for the Prophet into a crime is an attack on the Constitution of India and its moral discretion. We should stand together to restore constitutional orders, equality and justice,” he said.
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