Jamiat chief claims judiciary working under government pressure

New Delhi: Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind president Mahmood Madani on Saturday said that the recent court verdicts on Babri Masjid and triple talaq suggest the judiciary in India is functioning under government pressure, even as he urged the community at large to engage and start a dialogue with people from other faiths to explain issues faced by the Indian Muslims.

"The Supreme Court is entitled to be called 'Supreme' only as long as the Constitution is protected there," he said at the organisation's national governing body in Bhopal.

"If this does not happen, then it does not deserve to be called supreme," Madani said, referring to recent lower court proceedings in Gyanwapi and Shri Krishna Janm Bhoomi cases, despite the Places of Worship Act, 1991.

Jamiat is an influential and the largest council of Sunni Muslim scholars in India.

A resolution passed at the Bhopal conclave of the Jamiat expressed deep concern over a "malicious campaign" to malign religious terminology, particularly the word "Jihad".

"Jihad represents the struggle to uphold peace, justice and human dignity against oppression, tyranny and destructive forces. Disorder, turmoil, or mere bloodshed can never be called jihad," the resolution said.

"If there is oppression, then there will be jihad," Madani added in his speech, even as he called upon the government to protect the constitutional rights of the minorities.

He alleged that "organised efforts" were being made in the country to establish the supremacy of one group through actions like bulldozer action, mob lynching, weakening of Muslim Waqf and Islamic reforms.

The resolution also called the attempts to push the Uniform Civil Code in some BJP-ruled states as an attempt to erode religious freedom and constitutionally guaranteed rights, also calling in to question the Special Intensive Review of electoral rolls being carried out, an exercise that may "jeopardise even the citizenship rights" of a section of a population which would be a "grave violation of constitutional norms."