Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind chief Maulana Mahmood Madani said on Saturday that world’s top terrorist and ISIS boss Al Baghdadi will not be allowed to become a hero amongst Indian Muslims. “Baghdadi is not a jehadi, he is a fasadi (mischievous element). It’s a local fight that cannot be linked to Islam,” Madani told News24 Editor-in-Chief Anurradha Prasad during the TV channel’s chat show "Aamne Saamne", referring to the strife in Iraq and Syria. “There are reports of hundreds of Muslims from Britain and Australia fighting alongside ISIS. But Baghdadi will have no impact on the Indian Muslims because secularism and peace-loving sentiment is an inborn quality of the Indians,” said Madani. 'Won't allow Baghdadi or Zawahiri to become hero amongst Indian Muslims' Tags: Maulana Mahmood MadaniAamne SaamneAnurradha PrasadISISAl BaghdadiAyman Al ZawahiriAl QaedaNarendra Modi Saturday, September 20, 2014 8:26 PM ENI Bureau New Delhi: Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind chief Maulana Mahmood Madani said on Saturday that world’s top terrorist and ISIS boss Al Baghdadi will not be allowed to become a hero amongst Indian Muslims. “Baghdadi is not a jehadi, he is a fasadi (mischievous element). It’s a local fight that cannot be linked to Islam,” Madani told News24 Editor-in-Chief Anurradha Prasad during the TV channel’s chat show "Aamne Saamne", referring to the strife in Iraq and Syria. “There are reports of hundreds of Muslims from Britain and Australia fighting alongside ISIS. But Baghdadi will have no impact on the Indian Muslims because secularism and peace-loving sentiment is an inborn quality of the Indians,” said Madani. ALSO READ- Not proper to judge government's performance in 100 days: Joshi While asserting that the Indian Muslim youth will not get attracted to the likes of Baghdadi and Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri, Madani also stressed in the same breath that as a long term strategy, equal opportunity to Muslims should be given and their grievances should be addressed. “There is restlessness among the Muslim youth that some of them are being framed in terror cases,” he said. In this context, he referred to the Batla House encounter and said that a time-bound judicial inquiry should be ordered into the whole incident. “People take objection when we make this demand. What’s wrong in this?” When asked why Al Zawahari and Baghdadi were eyeing Indian Muslims for recruitment, Madani said that the Indian Muslim was by far more prosperous and successful than the Muslim in West Asian countries and the other nations of the Indian sub-continent. Reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interview to CNN in which he said that the Indian Muslim will live and die in India, Madani said this was a well-known fact and its assertion by Modi was akin to a “pleasant breeze from an open window”. Madani said that this comment by the Prime Minister should be appreciated. “We should not analyse the comment by putting ifs and buts,” he said and added that Modi sounded positive for secularism before the elections as well as during his Independence Day address from the Red Fort. When asked whether the common Muslim shared his opinion about Modi, he said that the average Indian Muslim will not take Modi’s word for it so easily. “The image that Modi has among the Muslims and what they have gone through... it’s not so easy for him (Muslim) to believe in Modi. We will have to change all this through a long-term process,” said Madani. Asked whether the Muslims felt safer in the Modi regime because of his new approach, Madani said: “The Muslim was safe, is safe and will remain safe in India, no matter who becomes the prime minister. PMs can come and go, but how can the Muslim feel unsafe in his own country?” The Jamiat leader said that one of the reasons for Modi’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections was that he chose not to use the plank of communalism. “But the situation reversed in UP when they tried to communalise the bypolls, and they got the result,” Madani said, referring to the BJP’s rout in the bypolls under the leadership of Yogi Adityanath, who had made “love jihad” an election plank. When asked to comment on the agenda of the RSS in states like UP, Madani said that whosoever was trying to instil insecurity amongst Muslims by harping on divisive agenda was not only a fool, but also a traitor. “If it is being done as a planned strategy, then that individual is a traitor.” Asked to comment whether this meant that Adityanath and BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj should be tried for sedition for raking up the “love jehad” issue and for their assertion that ‘madrassas teach terrorism’, Madani said: “I just want to pray for them to the Almighty. I pray that the Almighty give them brains and put them on the right path.”

• published: 20 Sep 2014
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