An Ahmedabad sessions court, Gujarat on August 27 acquitted all nine persons charged for conspiring with Pakistan’s ISI and other terrorist outfits in order to avenge the atrocities committed against the Muslims during the 2002 riots. The court found no evidence to support any of the charges. After registering a case for terror conspiracy in 2003, the city crime branch under now-jailed D.G. Vanzara had nabbed 56 persons for allegedly conspiring at the behest of terror groups. The spec...

The question of who should control Mumbai’s 1,700-odd Muslim religious trusts has led to a war of words between the Charity Commission and the state Wakf Board with the Board’s Chief Executive Officer telling the former to not interfere in the affairs of Muslim trusts. These trusts own properties worth thousands of crores of rupees. Earlier, like all other religious institutions, Muslim trusts were administered by the state charity commissioner. But after the implementation of t...

A teacher in West Bengal who has enrolled more Hindu students than Muslims in his madrasa is to receive the national award from President Pratibha Patil this Teachers’ Day. Anwar Hossain, the headmaster of Orgram Chatuspalli High Madrasah in Burdwan district, will be among the 12 teachers from the state who will receive the award at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. In 1977, when Hossain joined the madrasa, it had just 34 students. Slowly the number increased and the institute drew mor...

Renowned Muslim leader and president All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, in a letter to the High Commissioner of Bangladesh in New Delhi, on August 6, termed the Bangladesh government’s bid to remove books written by Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi as “contrary to democratic principles” and urged the government of Bangladesh to withdraw the order to this effect.

The letter says: “It has been reported that the government of Bangladesh has asked all mosques, a...