After creating obstructions on Hindu festivals like Durga Puja and Ram Navami, and blocking the rath yatra planned by BJP in West Bengal, now the Mamata Banerjee has laid the red carpet for a maulana from Bangladesh known for his anti-Hindu sermons.
Abdur Razzak Bin Yousuf, an Islamic preacher from Bangladesh, has announced a tour of West Bengal in the third week of December, where he will address meetings at various places in Malda, Murshidabad, Howrah etc places, many of the venues being madrassas. His program in India started on 14th December and ends on 20th December.
Most of the locations selected by the Maulana are Muslim dominated areas, which have seen widespread communal violence in recent past. There are four events scheduled in Malda, a hotspot of communal tensions in the state. In 2016, communal violence in Kaliachak in Malda saw rampant destruction of police stations, public properties and vehicles. A mob of Muslim protesters had turned violent protesting against remarks made by Hindu Mahasabha leader Kamlesh Tiwari, for which he was already in jail.
Abdur Razzak Bin Yousuf is a preacher on Peace TV, and his sermons are uploaded on Social Media also. This what he says one such video:
In this video, he is heard saying, ‘I want to kick and break idols’, ‘I am Muslim, breaking idols is in our blood, breaking idols is in our community’. He also says that Muslims should not celebrate Bengali new year, and he will bury such Hindu traditions in the grave. His speeches are filled with pure, unadulterated hatred for Hinduism. He also talks about what women are allowed and not allowed to do, in his sexist comments.
Such a Hindu hater has been allowed to hold meetings in West Bengal by the state government. Reacting to the development, state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said that this is a deliberate strategy of Mamata government to not allow Rath Yatra but to allow the Islamic preacher from Bangladesh. He said that TMC is doing this to appease Muslim voters. He also demanded that the government should cancel the meetings to be addressed by the Maulana.
In October this year, Abdur Razzak had to cancel a program scheduled to be held at Midnapore in WB, due to massive protests on social media. This time too, social media is seeing protests against the proposed tour by the Islamic preacher.