AMN /Rajahmundry (AP)

In a barbaric act, miscreants here attacked a mosque in a village killing the muazzin ( who calls Azan) on Friday.

According to reports, criminals attacked Noorani Masjid in Talacheru Village of Rajahmundry and killed its muazzin, Mohammed Farooq (60), a native of Bihar. They also desecrated Quran

He had come here a few months back. He was a kind-hearted person who was leading the life according to the tenets of Islam due to which miscreants targeted him.

They also desecrated the Quran and burnt the other articles. Burnt pieces of cigarettes and beedis were found in the masjid. The local residents told that this kind of incident took place for the first time in Rajahmundry. They demanded to arrest the culprits. The dead body of the Muazzin was shifted to hospital for postmortem. Police sought 48 hours to search for the attackers. The adjoining areas of Rajahmundry became tense.

The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos today condemned yet another barbaric killing of a Muslim, in the heinous murder of Mohammed Farooq, a cleric at Noorani Mosque in Talacheru village in Rajahmundry district of Andhra Pradesh.

“This murder of an innocent cleric and the desecration of the mosque represents a worsening of the human rights situation of Dalits and minorities in India. We call upon the Andhra Pradesh administration not only to take every step to apprehend the killers of Mohammed Farooq, but also to check the hateful rhetoric and bigotry that enables such senseless and brutal violence” said Mr. Ahsan Khan, the National President of IAMC. “This hate crime is an aberration in an otherwise peaceful Rajahmundry district which has a history of peaceful coexistence amongst people from all religious communities.

The year 2017 recorded the highest death toll (11 deaths) and the most number of incidents of hate violence (37 incidents) related to cows and religion since 2010, according to an IndiaSpend database that records cow-related hate crime.

Photo–Siasat News