Islamic organisation demands ban on renaming

By NewsGram Staff-Writer

A ban on renaming of cities and roads has been sought by Jamaat-e-Islami Hind terming the changes as an attempt to rewrite history.

In a statement Jamaat-e-Islami Hind has criticised renaming on communal grounds. They exemplified the recent renaming of Aurangzeb Road to APJ Abdul Kalam Marg as misuse of power and called the change communally influenced.

The statement said," The campaign to rename historical places and roads is an attempt to rewrite history and project historical personalities of a particular community as villains and enemies of the country. The government should come out with a law banning the change of names of cities and roads."

The statement tagged authorities for communalising the history and creating hatred against a particular community.

The Jamaat also chastised the murder of Kannada writer M.M. Kalburgi, activist Narendra Dabholkar and CPI leader Govind Pansare. They hinted that the murders were pre-planned and were aimed to exterminate all those who raise their voice against fascist forces in the country.

The Islamic organisation also reprimanded the use of religious census data for drawing political interests. They said, "The data is being used by divisive forces to drive a wedge between communities by creating a bogey of Muslim hegemony and projecting their population growth as a threat to the country."

Jamaat-e-Islami also appealed to government for releasing the caste based data as soon as possible in the statement.

With Inputs from IANS