Citing discrimination and favouring of one community, Muslim community leaders from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts boycotted the peace committee meeting convened on Saturday by the district administration.
Leaders from the Muslim Central Committee Dakshina Kannada and Udupi, Popular Front of India (PFI), Dakshina Kannada District Organisations Union, Muslim Justice Forum Karnataka and other organisations boycotted the peace meeting saying it is pointless because the government has only addressed only one community.
Muslim Central Committee president K S Mohammed Masood organised a meeting at his residence, instead. In the meeting, the leaders decided to provide compensation of Rs 30 lac each to the family members of Mohammed Masood of Bellare and Mohammed Fazil of Mangalpete, who were both brutally murdered.
“The state ought to treat everyone equally. It shouldn’t favour any one community over another. The state does not practise equality. We abstained from the meeting because chief minister Basavaraj Bommai, who went to the home of Praveen Nettaru, did not go to the home of Masood, who was murdered on July 21,” Vice President of the Muslim Central Organization B M Mumtaz Ali said.
“Fazil was murdered was hacked to death when the chief minister was in Mangaluru. He questioned why the deaths of these two young people were less significant to the government.”
He said that within a week, three lives were lost. The distribution of compensation, however, was unfair. “We have no issue with the Chief Minister giving compensation to the family of Praveen from his party’s funds. He argued that all three families should receive compensation from the government.