KOZHIKODE: The decision of various mahallu committees (panels attached to mosques) to issue excommunication notices and boycott calls on the families of youth with links to organisations such as Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), Popular Front and the National Democratic Front (NDF) in Kuttiyadi area in Kozhikode district has kicked up a row. Leader of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and the pro-IUML scholars’ body Samastha Kerala Jamiyyatul Ulama of the EK Sunni section launched a campaign against the ‘infiltration’ of organisations with questionable credentials into the believers’ community following the murder of IUML worker K.P. Nazirudheen at Velam near Vadakara in Kozhikode district on July 15.
The campaign has now spilled over to social networking sites like Facebook and WhatsApp, too. Valakettu Mahal near Kuttiadi on July 22 issued a notice saying it has decided to remove all members of “extremist outfits such as SDPI, Popular Front and SDPI from the primary membership of the Mahallu”. “The mahallu committee will have no relationship with such organisations,” the notice said.
An SDPI sympathiser told this newspaper that hundreds of families are excommunicated for the links of youngsters with such organisations. Call to boycott functions related to marriages, deaths and other religious rites and also the business firms and institutions is on through social networking sites, he added.
The affected persons have started protesting the move. Legal expert advocate M. Muhammed Shuhaib said that a mahallu committee has no legal or religious right to remove a person from its primary membership and deny him the basic religious rights during marriage or death. “Such incidents are increasing recently which also end up in legal wrangles and social tension, as the families of the youngsters are the real victims,” he pointed out
Samastha leader Kottumala Bappu Musaliyar told Deccan Chronicle that the organisation was running an intense campaign against infiltration of such elements into religious bodies but the denial of religious rights was not at all advised. “We can only keep them off the official committees,” he said, adding that the other moves have no legal sanction.
