By NewsGram Staff Writer

In a bizarre turn of events, Muslim community leaders in Nepal say that they feel more "secure" under a constitution designating as a Hindu state as compared to a secular state. Muslims in the country are fully supportive of the ongoing campaign to reinstate the country's once Hindu identity.

"It is to protect Islam. I demanded that Nepal be declared a Hindu state in order to protect my own religion," said Amjad Ali, chairman of the Rapti Muslim Society, who is also actively involved in the protest programmes going on in Nepal about the establishment of a Hindu state.

CPN-UMLCA (Communist Party of Nepal) member Anarkali Miya said, "I believe Nepal should not adopt secularism. It will only create more problems in future." Miya said she has personally experienced missionaries trying to influence people from other faiths to follow Christianity.

Udbudhin Fru, chairman of Muslim Mukti Morcha which is affiliated with the UCPN (Maoist), also admitted that there is a growing influence of Christianity in Nepal.

"Turning the country secular is nothing but a design to break the longstanding unity among Muslims and Hindus. So there is no alternative to reinstating the country's old Hindu State identity in order to allow fellow citizens to live with religious tolerance," Babu Khan Pathan, chairperson of the Rastrabadi Muslim Manch Nepalgunj, said as quoted by The Himalayan Times.

He said that declaring the country as a Hindu State will ensure "safety and security" for all, and that 80 percent of Muslims in Banke are in the favour of Hindu State identity.

With Nepal planning to adopt a new constitution, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, a pro-monarchy party and other pro-Hindu organizations have also been demanding for reconverting Nepal to a Hindu state.

Legislators have been working on the new constitution of Nepal since 2008—after a decade long Maoist insurgency that left an estimated 16,000 people dead—but writing it has turned out to be tiresome task for the ruling and opposition parties. For the last eight years, the parties have been zealously arguing over vital issues including secularism and federalism.