Team Herald
PANJIM: Azad Jamatul Muslimeen Welfare Trust (AJMWT) has written to the government to constitute Goa State Minorities Commission (GSMC) citing the directions of the Ministry of Minority Affairs.
AJMWT President Sayed Manzoor Kadri in a letter to the Chief Secretary of Goa has brought to the government’s notice that the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs in January this year had directed to constitute a State Minorities Commission.
Kadri said, “For minorities, Constitution of India has envisaged a number of rights and safeguards. To provide enough equality and to dwindle the discrimination, makers have spelt out various things in Fundamental Rights (Part III), Directive Principles of State Policy (Part IV) and also the Fundamental Duties (Part IV-A).”
He said under the Nation Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, the Union Government set up the National Commission for Minorities for the religious minorities viz Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis) and Jains.
“Regret to bring to your kind notice that so far the State has not constituted the Goa State Commission for Minorities when your office received a letter from the Ministry of Minority Affairs, New Delhi,” Kadri added.
The letter was issued in January this year after a delegation of AJMWT met Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi in December 2018 placing before him the demand to constitute a GSMC.
AJMWT has threatened to take legal course if the demand for a State Minorities Commission is not fulfilled.
