No restrictions on presence of women journalists during Deoband event: Seminary

Lucknow/Saharanpur: The Darul Uloom Deoband on Saturday asserted that there were no directives to keep women journalists away from covering the visit of Afghanistan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to the seminary.

"There were no restrictions from the Afghan foreign minister's office about who would attend," Deoband PRO Ashraf Usmani, also the media in-charge of Muttaqi’s Saturday programme, told PTI, and dismissed as "baseless" claims that women journalists were kept away.

This followed a controversy over the absence of female journalists from a press conference of the visiting Afghanistan Minister in New Delhi a day earlier, with the Opposition terming it as "unacceptable" and an "insult to women".

The Islamic seminary's clarification came regarding a public event of the Afghanistan minister that was scheduled to be held during his visit to the Darul Uloom Deoband in Saharanpur on Friday but was called off at the last moment due to "overcrowding" and "security reasons".

"There were no directives from anywhere on the attendance of women journalists. But the programme got called off at the last moment," Deoband PRO Ashraf Usmani, also the media in-charge of Muttaqi’s Saturday programme, told PTI.

"Though the programme was called off due to overcrowding, the presence of a couple of women journalists for the Afghanistan minister's event was enough to rebut reports of women journalists being made to keep away from the event," he said, even naming news channels those journalists represented.

"There were no restrictions from the Afghan foreign minister's office about who would attend," he added.

The absence of women journalists from the Friday presser by the Afghan leader has snowballed into a major controversy as, over the years, the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan has been criticised for the denial of rights to women.

"More people turned up for the event than were expected. So the Afghanistan minister's speech didn't happen as local administration cited security concerns as a reason for cancelling the public event," Usmani added.

"Various things were doing the rounds, from women journalists not being allowed to them being made to sit separately. All of this was baseless," said Usmani, who is a Nazim (equivalent to departmental head) in Darul Uloom Deoband.

Ashraf Usmani said that today's programme of the Afghan foreign minister was organised by Darul Uloom Deoband.

"As far as the coverage of today's event is concerned, women reporters were allowed to cover it. The seating arrangements for the women reporters were made along with their male counterparts," he said while replying to queries, adding that there was no 'purdah' or curtain at the venue of the programme.

Usmani is a Nazim (equivalent to departmental head) in Darul Uloom Deoband.

Usmani added that there was an unexpected rush of the media at the programme venue even when Muttaqi was having lunch at the guest house.

"As the district administration announced that the programme had been cancelled owing to overcrowding, we hurriedly invited the media at the guest house for a quick interaction before Muttaqi left for Delhi," he said.

Meanwhile, the president of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, Maulana Arshad Madani, when asked about Friday's press conference of the Afghan foreign minister, told reporters, "It was a coincidence that yesterday's press conference was attended only by men. The Afghan foreign minister had not said no to women coming to the press conference. It was wrong and propaganda."