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| NMC chairman Naseem Ahmad |
Minority organizations of Mumbai have taken strong exception to the National Minorities Commission (NMC) members “resting” at the Maharashtra government’s Sahyardi Guest House at the Malabar Hill, but refusing to inform minority leaders of the state for any representation.
Taking note of this, Save Our Land’s (SOUL’s) Dolphy D'souza, who is former president of the Bombay Catholic Sabha, has said it is “shocking” that the members of the NMC are in Mumbai for two days, yet “hardly anyone knows about their visit.”
“They are supposed to meet members of the minorities to understand their problems”, D’souza has said, wondering, “Or is this a private agenda programme or a secret meeting?”
Demanding an “explanation” from NCM why its visit was “not widely published so that all aggrieved minorities could attend to air their grievances”, D’souza says, “They are supposed to meet members of the minorities to understand their problems.”
D’souza says, “On checking further with the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission office in Mumbai, they confirmed that the chairman and members of the NCM are in Mumbai for two days and they have received the programme schedule.”
However, he adds, the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission Office is refusing to reveal the NMC’s programme. However, an official informed him that the NMC has “meeting was organised by the Minorities Welfare Department of Government of Maharashtra” and this is the only thing they know”
Calling this “sad and unfortunate”, D’souza says, “When probed why the State Minorities Commission had not published this wider, this person said they had “no role to play in this meeting.”
Considering this strange, D’souza says, this contradicts what NCM’s website has to say – that it is an “organization to safeguard the Constitutional and Legal Rights of the Minorities."
“Tragically, the NMC’s track record has been pathetic. In the current attacks on Christian minorities all over the country, the NCM is found missing in action”, he says.
“Normally NCM members do site visits to the spots of violence. But it appears they are sitting in the air-conditioned cabins of the NCM in Delhi. They are supposed to be at the ground level when incidents of violence and intimidation happens to the minorities”, D’souza says.
He further says, “While accessing the NCM website, there is a new icon for successes. And one is surprised that there is listed a success story of an attack on the Pastor and the Church members of the Victory Mission International Church, Kottayam , Kerala, and a response from the Police in Kerala dated June 5, 2011. And two more success stories are of 2010 and 2012.”
He says, his organization, SOUL, has taken strong exception to the fact that “none of what has happened in the last eight months on Christian minorities has got the attention of the NCM".
“It appears that the NCM does not seem to serve the purpose for which it has been constituted to safeguard the rights of the Minorities and waste public money in the process”, he concludes.
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