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Muslim groups unhappy over Ajmer blast probe

JAIPUR: Muslim groups in Rajasthan on Tuesday expressed concern over investigating agencies trying to pinpoint the blame for last week’s bomb blast at the Ajmer dargah on Islamist outfits and said they feared that the police might once again target poor innocent civilians and extract fake confessions instead of carrying out an honest probe to nail down the real culprits.

A delegation of the Rajasthan Muslim Fourm – an umbrella body of Muslim organisations of the State, which visited the dargah on Saturday – said the attack on the Sufi shrine during the month of Ramzan three days before Id-ul-Fitr was aimed at terrorising Muslims and spoiling the festive atmosphere, besides disturbing communal harmony in the city. The Forum, while demanding that the investigation of the terror attack be handed over to the Central agencies, alleged that the reason behind holding Islamist groups alone for the blast could be none other than “intelligence failure” of the State police, which were clueless about the attack till it happened and were now trying to link it with previous incidents such as the Meeca Masjid blasts in Hyderabad.

“With the police arriving at hasty conclusions in blaming extremist outfits such as Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI), the real perpetrators of the heinous attack must be feeling assured that they would never be suspected,” said Qari Moinuddin, who led the delegation.

He said the investigating agencies shifting the blame to HuJI without gathering hard and impartial evidence was “outrageous”.

The delegation comprised members of Jamiat-ul-Quraish, Jamat-e-Islami Hind, Students’ Islamic Organisation, Doctors’ Islamic Association and independent Muslim social activists. It visited the blast site at Ahata-e-Noor inside the dargah and met those injured in the attack.

Jamat-e-Islami State president Mohammed Salim said if HuJI or other Islamist groups could be blamed for the blast on the ground of their opposition to Muslims worshipping at dargahs, there were ample reasons for suspecting a host of other organisations that were equally intolerant of the syncretic tradition of Hindus and Muslims visiting the Sufi shrines.

“By declaring specific groups as culprits on the basis of ideological differences within the Muslim community, there cannot be any investigation worth the name. Such a probe is flawed and can hardly inspire confidence among the people,” said Mr. Salim.

The Forum also disapproved of the State Government’s decision not to hand over the Rs.5-lakh solatium announced earlier to the family of Syed Saleem from Hyderabad – one of the deceased – ostensibly because of his suspected links with terrorists. “Syed Saleem’s death is being used as a pretext to twist the direction of investigation to Hyderabad,” said the Forum.

The Forum, while calling for transfer of the probe to Central agencies “in view of the State police being prejudiced”, said the investigators should “look at all angles ruthlessly and thoroughly” and collect hard, clinching and irrefutable evidence.

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