the goan I network
MARGAO
Tension rent the air as two groups of Muslims came face to face over a controversial banner that was put up on the compound wall of the Davorlim Masjid calling three Muslim leaders as traitors, who had shared the dais with BJP national spokesman Syed Shahnawaz Hussain during his visit to the South Goa BJP district office earlier this week where he spoke on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
A group of people, all members of the Muslim community, assembled outside the Maina-Curtorim police station housed at the South Goa police headquarters since Saturday noon after the police picked up a person for interrogations in connection with the incident.
They feared that the police might take the person into custody in connection with the incident. The person was later allowed to go home after interrogation.
However, acting on a complaint lodged by one Mainuddin Tehsildar that he was pushed down when questioned over the banner, the police registered an FIR against one Kadar Shah under sections 323, 506, 504 of the IPC and under the provisions of the Defacement of Public Property Act.
Maina-Curtorim Police station in-charge, PI Gurudas Kadam, informed that the incident occurred when the complainant claimed that he was pushed allegedly by Kadar when he questioned the latter for putting up the banner depicting the three Muslim leaders in poor light and on the compound wall of the Masjid.
The group of Muslims had assembled outside the police station fearing that they might take the person into custody in connection with the incident.
The banner called the three Muslim leaders as traitors and calling upon the community to boycott the three persons, even calling them as enemies of Muslims. “We have invoked the Defacement of Public Property Act since the banner was put up on the compound wall of the Masjid, which is a public place,” PI Kadam added.
The incident is believed to be the fallout of the visit of the BJP National Spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain earlier this week when he addressed members of the Muslim community at the BJP South Goa office in the presence of deputy Chief Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar, Chairman of Goa Haj Committee Sheikh Jina, Ashraf Pandiyal, Sheikh Aslam and other BJP leaders.
Not taking any chances, the Maina-Curtorim police has started patrolling around Davorlim as a precautionary measure given the sensitive nature of the case and in view of the ongoing country-wide protests against the CAA.
