Even as the BJP is all set for a show of strength at Vastral on Sunday, the voluntary organisation, Anhad, held a meeting in Juhapura on Saturday evening to discourage Muslims from attending the Vastral rally.
Most speakers at the meeting talked about the injustice done to Muslims during the 2002 riots and said that Modi's fast was nothing but a joke. The speakers said the Almighty will never be happy if Juhapura Muslims attend the BJP's meeting on Sunday.
Anhad (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy) office-bearers also alleged that the police had called them at the last minute and tried to cancel their permission for holding the meeting.
Shabnam Hashmi, founder trustee of Anhad, talked at length about this. "Just an hour back, the Juhapura police inspector called our volunteer and asked her to come to the police station as the permission for holding the meeting had been cancelled. I took the phone from her and asked the PI why the permission had been cancelled. He said that we are holding a political meeting," said Hashmi.
"I asked him whether only the BJP could hold political meetings here. I said I would hold the meeting and that it was my constitutional right. The inspector replied that if I had the constitutional right, others had the right to disrupt the meeting," she said.
Hashmi talked about the 400 women of 2002 riots who were allegedly gang-raped during the riots and were yet to get justice. She also talked in abusive terms about the Muslims who had attended Modi's Sadbhavna fast.
"We want to stop this politics of hate and you people don't feel ashamed in going to Modi's fast with the skullcap on your head? You posed for photographs with him after taking Rs200 to Rs500?" she said, referring to the chief minister in derogatory terms.
"We will not stop anybody who wants to go to the Vastral rally but they should understand that all this is politics. People of India will never let Modi become the prime minister," she said.
She further said that Modi knows that he cannot win the 2012 assembly election without Muslim votes because he is facing massive protests in the state.
