Hindustan Times (Lucknow)

Minority panel to launch ‘doorstep’ campaign

- HT Correspond­ent letters@hindustant­imes.com ▪

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Minority Commission (UPMC) has decided to launch a statewide at-your-doorstep campaign to address problems of the minorities and ensure their on-the-spot redressal.

“We are getting a lot complaints related to land grabbing and disputes, hence the commission has decided to take up these cases commission­ary wise beginning with Faizabad division,” said Tanveer Haider Usmani, who chaired a meeting of the UPMC here on Monday.

The commission will visit commission­aries in a month and take stock of the implementa­tion of UP government’s welfare schemes

THE COMMISSION WILL VISIT COMMISSION­ARIES IN A MONTH AND TAKE STOCK OF THE IMPLEMENTA­TION OF UP GOVERNMENT’S WELFARE SCHEMES AND DISBURSAL OF BANK LOANS TO MINORITIES

and disbursal of bank loans to minorities.

“The doorstep campaign is part of the slogan coined by the commission ‘UP Sarkar ka ek saal bemisaal, alpsankhya­k ayog aapke dwar’,” said Usmani.

“A resident of Bareilly approached the commission a couple of days ago saying that land belonging to a Church had been grabbed by some people and unauthoris­ed constructi­on was going on in full-swing. I immediatel­y sent a fax message to DM Bareilly to get the constructi­on stopped and have sought a report in the matter,” said Usmani.

A Muslim woman (Ishrat Jahan) from Muzzafarna­gar knocked at the commission’s door over alleged harassment by her former husband, who had given her verbal divorce.

“After the divorce, she married another man but her first husband is still hounding her and making her life miserable. I have asked DM and SP of Muzaffarna­gar to provide her protection and take prompt action on her complaint,” he said.

“As a journalist who has done a 25-year stint in a leading Hindi Daily, I know how to handle the bureaucrat­s. Their (bureaucrat­s) dilly-dallying tactics won’t work with me,” he asserted.

On the controvers­y surroundin­g MA Jinnah’s portrait in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Usmani, who is also a member of the university’s Executive Council, said he would raise the issue in the next meeting of the EC.

“There can’t be any difference of opinion on the issue. The man (Jinnah) who propounded the two-nation theory and partitione­d the country cannot be an ideal for us,” he said adding that Muslims would have been better off in an undivided India.

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