Terror Arrests: Bihar civil group writes to Chief Justice of India

By Mudassir Rizwan, TwoCircles.net,

Patna: A civil rights group from Bihar has sought Chief Justice of India’s intervention for high-level probe into the murder of Mohammad Qateel Siddiqui in high-security Pune jail. Condemning the custodial murder, People’s Initiative, in its memorandum to CJI, has also highlighted the brazen violation by ATS teams of the Supreme Court guidelines about arrest.




L-R: Abdus Salam (father of Kafeel Akhtar), civil rights activist Nayyer Fatmi, civil activist Kanchan Bala, Amrah Jalal (mother of Fasih Mahmood), Shakeel Siddiqui (brother of Qateel Siddiqui) and civil activist and journalist from Darbhanga Shakeel Ahmad Salafi


“Qateel Siddiqui of Darbhanga was killed in judicial custody in Pune jail on 8th June 2012. The murder has made the role of jail administration and police suspicious. As the he was murdered in judicial custody, so we demand the Chief Justice of India to order a high-level inquiry into this murder,” the group demanded in the memorandum which was released to the media at a program at IMA Hall in Patna on Monday.

On the occasion, the group released a report of its fact-finding team which recently visited Darbhanga and adjoining areas from where over one dozen youths have been picked in terror cases since November 2011.







“In the name of counterterrorism, ATS has been violating the rules and guidelines of Supreme Court while arresting youths from Darbhanga and Madhubani, so we demand appropriate action in this regard,” the group said.

The civil activists demanded bail for the accused against whom police have not filed charge sheet even after the stipulated time and they are in jail for a long time.





The fact-finding team narrating their observation about the area said that due to arrests fear has enveloped the entire area of Darbhanga and Madhubani. ATS is not working as a law enforcement agency, rather it is working as a kidnapping gang. The team also revealed that some boys in Darbhanga are being threatened by Maharashtra ATS and Karnataka ATS. They are asked to come to Mumbai without telling anyone.





People’s Initiative had also invited family members of the arrested youths to tell their story to the media. Amrah Jalal, mother of Fasih Mahmood, Shakeel Siddiqui, brother of Qateel Siddiqui and Abdus Salam, father of Kafeel Akhtar told their story. They also talked to TCN.

The program was attended by eminent civil and human rights activists and community leaders. They included Kanchan Bala, Mahender, Nayyer Fatmi, Jitendra, Satnarayan Madan, Adv. Manilal, Arshad Ajmal, Nayyaruzzaman (state president of Jamaat Islami) and Anish Ankur.





The civil group announced to organize a dharna (sit-in) against the illegal arrests on 24th June at Kargil Chowk, Gandhi Maidan in Patna.

Bihar Govt. to celebrate birth anniversary of first CM Mohammad Younus: Nitish

But the JDU-BJP government of Nitish Kumar has not included Younus in the state government’s official list of chief ministers of Bihar since 1937. The list recently uploaded on the website of Bihar Assembly starts with the name of Shri Krishna Singh.

By Mudassir Rizwan, TwoCircles.net,

Patna: When on Sunday Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar was lamenting that people do not know about the first chief minister of Bihar Mohammad Younus, he perhaps had no idea that his own government has forgotten the man – deliberately or whatever. Barrister Mohammad Younus took oath as first chief minister (then called premier) of Bihar on 1st April 1937 after the first assembly polls in which his Muslim Independent Party had emerged second largest party. He led the minority government of his party for about four months till the Congress, the first largest party, decided to form the government. Younus resigned and Shri Krishna Singh of Congress became chief minister on 20th July 1937. But a list of chief ministers of Bihar (since 1937 till now) recently uploaded on the official website of Bihar Assembly has not included Mohammad Younus. The list starts with the name of Shri Krishna Singh.







L-R: Prof. Alimullah Hali, Nitish Kumar, Dr Imtiyaz Ahmed and Mohammad Kashif Yunus


Speaking at the program organized by Younus’s grandson Adv. Kashif Younus in Patna on the occasion of 60th death anniversary of Bihar’s first chief minister, Nitish Kumar said: “All people do not know that Mohammad Younus was the first chief minister (premier) of Bihar in 1937. He was made chief minister of an interim government as Congress declined to form the government citing some discretionary powers of the governor. Younus remained CM for first four months.”

At the conference, Nitish announced that from next year the state government will celebrate the birth anniversary of first chief minister of Bihar Mohammad Younus on 4th May. But the first thing Nitish should do now is to ask his officials as to how the name of Mohammad Younus was not included in the official list of chief ministers of Bihar since 1937.

Chief Ministers since 1937






[Source: http://vidhansabha.bih.nic.in/pdf/Chief_Ministers_since_1937.pdf]


In his speech Nitish heaped praise on Bihar’s first CM Mohammad Younus and counted his excellent work he did as CM just within four months. “He did great work for urban local bodies, Urdu language and income tax relief for waqf properties. He set up Bihar Young Men’s Institute. Most importantly, he vowed he won’t allow any communal violence during his government. And when a communal incident happened in Aurangabad, he immediately visited the place and himself controlled the situation. You can imagine the hard work as there was not much means of communication and transportation. Even telephone connections were not there.”

Addressing the gathering, Maulana Anisur Rahman Qasmi, Nazim, Imarat Shariah (Bihar, Jharkhand & Orissa), also counted the good work of Mohammad Younus. “Generally, not many good words are said about politics, but we have not heard any using bad words about Younus sahib,” said Maulana Qasmi. He also informed that Mohammad Younus had been part of Imarat Shariah.

Younus formed Independent Party in 1936 with the help of Maulana Abul Mohasin Sajjad (Founder of Imarat-e-Shariah) and became its Founder President. It is said Mohammad Ali Jinnah persuaded him to merge his party with Muslim League before 1937 election. But Younus rejected the offer and contested the polls in alliance with Congress. His Independent Party emerged second largest party after Congress in the House. He took oath as first Premier (now chief minister) of Bihar province on 1st April 1937. He remained on the post for about 4 months.







Audience


Mohammad Younus was born on 4th May 1884 at Panehara village in Masaurhi area of Patna. Younus was born in a family of lawyers and jurists. His father Maulvi Ali Hassan Mukhtar was advocate. His grandfather Maulvi Mohammad Azam retired as District Judge of Munger in Bihar. And now his grandson Kashif Younus is also practicing law in Supreme Court of India.

Mohammad Younus died on 13th May 1952 of heart attack in London. He was buried in London.

BSE and TASIS train business executives for Islamic banking & finance

By Mohd. Ismail Khan and Mudassir Rizwan, TCN,

Mumbai: Corporate executives and finance professionals learning and discussing financial business market issues in conference rooms at Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), is a normal scene but what happened last week was unprecedented. This time they were learning and discussing Islamic banking and finance at a program jointly organized by Taqwaa Advisory and Shariah Investment Solutions Pvt Ltd (TASIS) and BSE.




Training program on Islamic banking and finance held at BSE, Mumbai



TASIS and BSE organized the two-day program “Islamic banking, finance and capital market” (16-17 Dec.) for market professionals, finance and banking executives. The push might have come from growing Islamic banking and finance sector across continents.

Islamic banking and finance has reached the boundaries of more than 75 nations of the world, and many developed and secular nations including UK, USA, France, Germany, and Singapore are promoting this concept. The robust performance of Islamic banking and finance sector during the recent financial downturn has added to its magnetism.

Western nations such as UK, are promoting Islamic finance with the slogan of “no favor but no discrimination”. Same way in India many institutions including some owned by government have showed interest to capitalize on this growing niche opportunity. For example Kerala government owned KSIDC has started Al-Barakah Financial Services Ltd; GIC of India has started Islamic re-assurance scheme, SEBI has permeated several schemes explicitly adhering to the Islamic rules of investment, and Bombay Stock Exchange has started a Shariah index for share marketing.

The two-day program by TASIS and BSE was organized for finance professionals, fund managers, merchant bankers, corporate financial advisors, portfolios managers, and product development managers, finance marketing professionals, chartered accountants, stock brokers, wealth managers & AMCs. The program mainly focused on the following:

• The basic concepts of tenets of Islamic banking and finance
• The working of an Islamic bank
• Islamic law relating to investment in the stock market
• Screening processes of selecting shariah compliant stock
• Islamic insurance

Program to train professionals for coming Islamic finance market

TCN spoke to Dr. Shariq Nisar, Director of TASIS, on the program and its purpose. The reason to organize this programme was that many business professionals were interested in knowing about Islamic finance, so by the way of this programme professionals will get aware of the Islamic finance, and also when Islamic banking is going to start in India and if the people are not aware of it then the chances of exploitation is very high. So to avert that kind of situation this programme is conducted, said Dr Nisar.

He says it is first kind of programme organized by the BSE for the professionals who want to learn about Islamic finance. He further says that majority of the professionals attending this programme are non-Muslims, and non-Muslims professionals are showing curiosity and interest in learning about Islamic finance, and how Islamic banking and insurance can function and also the Muslims who are attending this programme are seeing it from business operational point of view, and not in a religious way.


India needs Islamic finance for growth: Dr Shariq Nisar

Dr. Nisar says Islamic finance in India depends on two important aspects: First is the domestic demand; and the second is India’s position in the globalization of the financial sector, because domestically India is unable to generate enough capital largely because its major Muslim population is being discouraged to enter into the Indian market because of the perception of Haram, and globally the large number of global capital is getting generated from middle east or many other Islamic countries. So if India wants to satisfy the demand of investment and capital it has to have an Islamic financial market both domestically and globally, and India will definitely be going to have a Islamic financial market very soon. The sooner India does it, the better for the nation and the whole economy, he ascertains.



Dr Shariq Nisar, Director, TASIS, giving market executives tips about Islamic banking and finance

He said the shariah index started by the BSE is just a one step. It is not the end. There is going to be much more research by the BSE and TASIS to certify many more shariah compliant products and the Islamic banking. He says Islamic finance is not just for the minority Muslim population in this country, but it is for the money. The nations which have allowed Islamic finance were not lovers of Islam. For example France allowed Islamic finance but in the same month it banned hijab. Different countries and people are attracted towards Islamic finance for the need of money. He said Islamic finance is all about the real economic activity, it doesn’t allow gambling with the money, in this way it can restrain economic downturn by promoting real economic activity and deterring people to gamble with money so it will be in the larger interest and welfare of the citizens of this country.

He says India is a country with huge Muslim population but still it is far behind in implementation of Islamic finance. Muslims in this country have money but they don’t know how to invest it financially, nor even banking professionals know as to how to guide their Muslim customers to invest in the commodity market. So this type of programme is conducted by the BSE and TASIS to train the banking officials in the Islamic finance.


Young market executives on Islamic Finance

TCN also spoke to some of the finance professionals who were attending the programme.

Varsha Jalan is an employee of a law firm giving legal assistance in the finance related matters. She said reason for joining this programme is to develop her expertise in the growing Islamic financial market, and because it could be a good mode of finance in India. Sumit Jalan and Yasmeen both belong to the banking profession. They said that Islamic finance has a good potential in India because of the large number of Muslim population which India possess, but at the same time they ascertain it should not be limited to a particular community because it is very viable and economical than other services, so every person should get avail of this service.



Finance executives Yasmeen, Sumit and Varsha attending the workshop on Islamic banking and finance held at BSE, Mumbai

Varsha says that the programme was informative, and she learned new and surprising things about the Islamic finance and about the tenets of Islam. She thinks Islamic finance is a good way for India to attract FDI because India is in need of money and for Middle East India is good alternative to the west. Sumit and Yasmeen said that they learned many things about how the markets and MNCs work in Islamic countries and it was useful for them as they come from the banking sector, and it was good experience for them to learn about the core principles of Islamic finance. Sumit says that to attract FDI in the banking sector you need to have knowledge of the environment which investors are looking forward for their investment, so the knowledge he gained will be useful for him in the future. Yasmeen said being a banker learning something new regarding to their profession was a pleasant experience for her.

An encounter with girl students in naqab at Patna Museum

By Mudassir Rizwan, TwoCircles.net,


Patna: The scene was very impressive but rare. Dozens of young Muslim girl students of a private school, in a naqab-like school uniform, were curiously looking at antiques at Patna Museum on Friday. Keeping Islamic dress rule close to their chest, they had ventured out on an educational tour to see the outer world – to have a close encounter with history and present.





“We are here to see old historic items, and learn lessons,” said Darakhshan Javed, VIIIth class student of Hazrat Ali Academy, a prominent Muslim private school in Muzaffarpur.







My next question obviously was about her naqab. Don’t you feel odd or face any difficulty when you come out in naqab? “Not at all. I don’t feel odd. This is our tehzeeb (culture) and a best means to keep ourselves from the evils of the society,” said a confident Darakhshan whose ambition is to become an engineer.





Marwa Iba of Class IX sounded equally confident about her dress. “I feel good when I come out in naqab. I feel safe from bad eyes. As most of women today do not wear naqab, so people think it is bad. In fact, it’s good,” said Iba. She wants to become a doctor.





About 30 students of Classes VIII, IX and X had come along with their teachers in the school bus. Besides Patna Museum, they visited Indira Gandhi Planetarium (popularly known as Tara Mandal) and Sanjay Gandhi Botanical and Zoological Garden (Zoo).





Highlighting the purpose of the visit, their principal Mr. Ehraz Ahmed said: “Quran asks us to move on earth and learn lessons from the fate of past nations and history. It is in our curriculum to take out students on educational tour of historic places so that our children could see the wider world.”

Wania Yusuf