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Azam Khan for restoring AMU's minority status

`Centre should amend the Act during winter session of Parliament'

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and senior Samajwadi Party leader Mohammed Azam Khan today appealed to the Centre to restore the minority status of the Aligarh Muslim University.

"The Union Government should amend the Minorities Educational Institutions Act during the winter session of Parliament to ensure that the minority status of AMU was restored immediately," Khan told reporters here.

A proposal to this effect has already been submitted to the Human Resources Development Ministry by the Minorities Forum of India in order to plug all loopholes in the said Act, Khan said adding the High Court decision over the AMU has posed a threat to the future of other minorities institutions as well.

Khan alleged that the Congress wanted to linger the issue of AMU till the next Assembly elections to gain political mileage. The matter had first surfaced just before the Assembly by elections in the state, he said.

``To ensure that amendment is unambiguous and leaves no space for confusion, the Minorities Forum of India had sent a proforma of the amendment to the Centre as a suggestion...it may be used,'' the minister said.

He claimed that the High Court order quashing the minority status of the AMU has put various minority institutions in the country in a quandary.

``The proposed Maulana Mohammed Jauhar Ali Muslim University too faces uncertainty as the bill was passed in the state legislature giving it a minority status,'' the minister said.

Khan, also Chairman of the State Haj Committee, said he would continue to oppose Union Government's decision to send government servants as khadims for Haj saying that deserving and religious persons should be sent as khadims.

He also opposed Centre's proposal to start five flights per day for Hajis from the Amausi airport in Lucknow.-- PTI & UNI

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Azam Khan for restoring AMU's minority status

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