Author: Mayabhushan Nagvekar
Publications: Herald, Panaji, Goa
Dated: December 7, 2001
"All of you should be waging jehad
in Kashmir." "What are you Goan Muslims doing here, sitting quiet, while
your brethren die in Afghanistan?"
This, and a spate of other inflammatory
speeches, made in mosques at Quepem and Vasco recently, has had the state
administration on the hop.
"Two persons, who claimed to be
maulavis, attended religious proceedings at the Quepem 15 days ago," highly
placed sources in the South District administration informed Herald. "After
the culmination of a prayer session, the duo started making such inflammatory
speeches, much to the discomfort of a section of namazis," sources added.
Sources further informed, that the
maulavis claimed to hail from Bihar and Karnataka.
An identical incident had also transpired
in a mosque at Baina, where two persons were reported to have made such
allegedly seditious and inflammatory speeches.
The local administration was awake
to the situation, after a representation drafted by a section of Muslims
in Quepem, who were disturbed by these developments, was received by the
Superintendent of Police (South) I D Shukla recently.
"A section of the Muslims residents
of Quepem, have expressed apprehension over the visit of these maulavis.
Although, they have not named any local sympathisers, they have asked the
administration to treat the matter seriously," a senior police officer
informed this reporter.
"We even had our police personnel
to attend the religious proceedings in plain-clothes, to learn more, but
we could not learn much. The maulavis must be lying low now," sources informed.
"But only a couple of days ago, some pamphlets containing provocative literature,
were distributed at a mosque in South Goa," they added.
Following the receipt of this representation,
the local Sub Divisional Police Officer, SP and other administrative bigwigs
in South Goa arranged a tete-e-tete with the senior residents of the area,
to discuss the matter.
While no senior government official
was willing to speak on the issue, which is being described as a 'sensitive'
issue, senior officials in the southern district administration said, that
the District Collector (South) has 'solved' the problem.
