National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah on Wednesday said the secular visage of the country was reeling under the threat from the surge of communalism.
Abdullah, who won the just-concluded Lok Sabha election fromthe Srinagar constituency, said the need of the hour was collective efforts forthe protection of religious freedom and rule of law in the country.
“The spur in the targeted attacks on Muslims at variousplaces across north India is just painful. The rise of communalism in India hasto be countered by all the right-thinking secular parties of the country,”the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said while interacting with variousdelegations here.
He said if the fascist syndrome of communal strife wasallowed to grow unchecked, it would eventually munch the secular fabric of oursociety, which was otherwise known for tolerance.
“The strife of communal hatred is one of the biggestchallenges for our society. It is for the new government to decide if they wantto let the mammoth of communalism grow unhindered. The idea of development isimpossible if 25 crore Muslims are not a part of that story,” Dr Farooqsaid.
He asserted that the government could not think of takingthe country forward without taking along the Muslims.
“Now we get to see Muslim men and women being attackedby unruly mobs across the country. The other day, we saw how a Muslim boy wasthrashed for wearing a skull cap. Is this the idea of India that was envisagedby the makers of our Constitution? The biggest challenge ahead of the central governmentwould be to stop such incidents from recurring,” the former Union ministersaid.