Ahlul Bayt News Agency (ABNA.ir), New Delhi: The Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, has sought an independent, high-level inquiry into bomb blasts of all kinds, fake encounters and confinement of Muslim youth, to nail the lie that Muslims are involved in acts of terrorism.

He asserted that “99 per cent of Muslims arrested on accusations of terrorism are innocent.”

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Shahi Imam recalled a recent meeting with him on issues of “fake encounters” and “indiscriminate arrests” of Muslim youth: “It is strange and paradoxical that the nation has two political sections, one playing politics on Muslim votes, and the other section adhering to anti-Muslim politics, but the object of both is to deprive Muslims of their constitutional and democratic rights and to reduce them to second-class citizens.”

The Shahi Imam accused the intelligence agencies and government departments of conniving to create “the hype that Indian Muslims have no agenda but that of terrorism.” He said even though there was evidence to believe that extremist organisations were involved in many of the terror attacks, only Muslims were arrested.

 Aligarh:  "India is most likely to become a modern nation because all the four pillars of modernity through Democracy, adult franchise, secularism, in which every faith is equal before the law, gender equality, and economic equality through economic opportunity are the driving forces of progress", said noted journalist M.J. Akbar.

On the declining number of Muslim MPs he said, "It is because the parties have created fear to win their votes. They feed Indian Muslim's fear in order to herd them in one direction at polling booth. Muslims will get justice and development when they vote for development. If they vote for fear they will get fear."

M.J. Akbar was delivering Sir Syed Memorial lecture on “Muslims and Modernity – Relevance of Sir Syed in 2010” organized by Sir Syed Academy at Kennedy Auditorium, Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh on April 20.