MT Abdulla Musliyar, a Samastha leader, publicly abused the organizers who presented a prize to a 15-year-old studying in a Madrassa run by the same leader. Inviting such girls onto the stage is anti-Islamic, he growled.
The man in question is the vice president of a Salafi Wahhabi group that calls itself the Samastha Kerala Sunni Islamic Educational Board. Born during the Hindu genocide of 1921, it is based out of Chelari on the Kozhikode Malappuram border. It runs thousands of madrassas and mosques where lakhs of Islamists send their children to learn about the Quran, Islam, Islamic history, rituals, and Arabic.
The incident occurred at the annual Madrassa program near Perinthalmanna in the Malappuram district. The prize was handed over by Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab, the current Kerala State President of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). All that Shihab could do was smile meekly when the Musliyar was publicly shouting on stage. There were also a dozen-odd people on the dais, and they cowered in fear.
Seeing the girl on stage receiving the prize, Musliyar shouted at the organizers. He asked them as to who had invited her to the stage. The girl’s parents should have come, he said. He turned aggressive and threatened the organizers not to repeat the same. He then turned against the young Muslim girl. Do not call ‘such’ girls here, he said.
The Wahabbi then asked someone whether he did not know Samastha’s decision? He asked someone menacingly whether he invited the girl to accept the prize? The answer was that he asked his child not even to attend the event, probably because that too was a girl child.
Musliyar was then heard asking Shihbab whether these ‘unwanted things’ would appear on social media and won’t go viral. What would have gone through the victim’s mind is beyond human comprehension.
The radical Islamist’s rant drew the ire of citizens, and criticism is mounting on social media. Unfortunately, Muslims in Kerala failed to voice their opinion against this verbal abuse while radical elements came out in support of their leader. Will the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights interfere, or is it reserved for Enforcement Directorate raids on drug runners who stay with their high-profile parents in Kerala?
