Sangh Parivar

Kathmandu, July 9: The Nepal Maoists, who played
a key role in abolishing the 240-year-old Hindu monarchy and turning
the country into a secular state, have vowed to ensure special rights
to the minority Muslim community in the Himalayan nation.

“It is not enough to provide equal rights to the
Muslims but they should be given special rights as compensation for
having been suppressed,” CPN-Maoist Chairman Prachanda told a gathering
of the Muslim Mukti Morcha (MMM), an organisation affiliated to the
party of the former rebels.

Prachanda’s support for special rights for the
Muslims is seen as an attempt to garner the sympathy of the minority
community, which mainly resides in the Terai-plains bordering India
where the Maoists suffered setbacks in the April Constituent Assembly
polls.

Declaring Nepal a secular nation was one of the
40-point demands put forth by the Maoists in 1996 when they started
their insurgency in the country.

Prachanda, who is poised to lead the new
government in Nepal, promised to form a ‘Muslim Commission’ for the
welfare of the minority community and develop historically important
pilgrimage sites of the community as tourist destinations.

In the past, the Maoist cadres were known to
slaughter cows in remote villages and even punish people for
celebrating Hindu festivals like Dussera and Diwali.

Despite being a Hindu nation, the government provided equal opportunity to the Muslim and Christian minorities.

MMM leader Mohammad Kasim Miya asked the
Terai-based Madhesi leaders not to categorise Muslims as Madhesis,
alleging that the regional parties of the plains were trying to deny
Muslims their rights.

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