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No, You Can't

The UP government didn바카라t resettle any of the 50,000 who fled their villages in the Muzaffarnagar riots. It is now not even letting an NGO to build homes for the refugees.

Haji Dilshad of Issapur Khurgan and his friends Tahir and Gulshad spend a lot of their time discussing 바카라Indian secularism바카라 now-a-days. Their philosophical bent of mind is a result of their recently-thwarted attempts to resettle Muslim families displaced by last September바카라s riots.

Tired of petitioning villages to take back their Muslims, Haji Dilshad decided last month that he would give up a part of his private land to build houses for the displaced. The plan was that the NGO he heads, Anjuman Ittihadul Muslimeen, would build homes on his land using charity funds.

But바카라it could happen only in Uttar Pradesh바카라last week, as inauguration day dawned, the administration stopped them dead in their tracks. 바카라We have been getting threats since our inaugural event on 2nd June,바카라 says Tahir Hassan on the phone from Kairana. The threats, he says, are from civilian district officials who바카라ll put him in jail if construction starts.

Tahir says that initially the Anjuman did ask refugees to pay what they could for their new homes. But no one came forward with cash바카라everybody was broke. 바카라Finally, we selected 300 destitute families from the nearby Malakpura camp. But the administration says we바카라re trying to 바카라cheat바카라 these people,바카라 says Hassan.

The Kairana administration says in a letter to the NGO that it is suspected of 바카라trying to grab government land바카라 under the guise of helping riot victims. 바카라You haven바카라t disclosed what agreements you are signing with the displaced. This makes us suspicious of your real intention,바카라 says the SDM of Kairana S.K. Mishra in a letter to Dilshad. The administration has imposed nine conditions for construction, starting with: 바카라You will not lay the foundation to build a mosque, a madrasa or any other religious structure on the land.바카라

바카라Most of the other conditions are fine, but how can we agree to not build a mosque or madrasa? We바카라re a Muslim body,바카라 says Gulshad.

It바카라s an interesting turn of events in an area where the government didn바카라t resettle any of the 50,000 who fled their villages in the riots. It did provide compensation to around 1000 families, but when allegations of misappropriation arose, the state government, bizarrely, even asked for people to return the money. Ten thousand people are still in camps, but the state doesn바카라t acknowledge they exist.

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The situation is so unreal the NGO heads have become a little philosophical. 바카라Tell me can바카라t we help our brothers if the government doesn바카라t? Does secularism mean Muslims can바카라t help Muslims?바카라

Indeed, the administration left post-riot relief and rehabilitation to the 바카라community바카라. It now appears concerned, rather belatedly, about exclusively-Muslim rural enclaves coming up in the area. 바카라It바카라s not that the state didn바카라t do anything for riot-affected Muslims. What it didn바카라t do is try to rebuild community ties; as a result the whole area is polarised,바카라 says Ish Pal Singh, a professor based in Muzaffarnagar. He, too, acknowledges that Muslim bodies, like the Anjuman, solely undertook rehabilitation with charity proceeds.

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