For Sambhal’s Muslim voters “the world’s biggest democracy is the world’s biggest sham”: Scholar and journalist, Ziya Us Salam, to Karan Thapar for The Wire.
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Commenting on deeply disturbing reports that on 7th May a large number of Muslim voters in West UP’s Sambhal district were deliberately denied the right to vote by different elements of the state authorities, the scholar, journalist and author Ziya Us Salam says that for Sambhal’s Muslim voters “the world’s biggest democracy has become the world’s biggest sham”. He said the electoral exercise had been made “a mockery”. He verified reports put out by the online educator Nabeela Khwaja and the documentary maker Samdish that a large number of Muslim voters were told their name was not on the voting list (which was false and nothing but deliberate obstruction), lathi-charged, their election slips torn, their Aadhaar cards confiscated and often accused of impersonation or having false Aadhaar cards. The aim, as Mr. Salam put it, was to put every possible obstacle in the way of a large number of Muslim voters who are perceived to be voters for the opposition.
In a 21-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Mr. Salam, an Associate Editor of The Hindu and the author of ‘Being Muslim in Hindu India’, said what happened at Sambhal was “an experiment” designed to prevent Muslims voting. However, he says similar things happened during a bye-election in Rampur in 2022.
Reports of what happened at Sambhal first surfaced when Nabeela Khwaja wrote an article in Article 14. They were further corroborated and expanded upon when Samdish put out a 20-minute video called Unfiltered. Mr. Salam added to this. He says many of the Muslim voters of Sambhal, who were denied the right to vote, contacted him for help.
Mr. Salam says the UP authorities have not acted because they completely deny all attempts to obstruct Muslim voters and, as he says, blame the failure of Muslims to vote on the claim they were carrying fake documents.
I will stop at this point. This is an interview you should see for yourself. It’s a shocking example of how attempts were made to prevent our Muslim brothers and sisters from voting. The people involved included the police and other administration officials.
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