NEW DELHI: Registering her protest against the incidents of “mob lynching of Muslims and rise of Islamophobia in the country“, social activist and human rights campaigner Shabnam Hashmi on Tuesday returned the `National Minority Rights Award' conferred on her by the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) in 2008. She justified her decision saying “the NCM and the present government have failed in providing even a semblance of dignity and security to the minority communities“.

Hashmi went to the NCM on Tuesday afternoon to return the award and the citation.NCM chief Syed Ghayorul Hasan Rizvi was not there as he is out of station. Addressing a presser, Hashmi read from a letter she submitted to the NCM. “I return the `National Minority Rights Award' given by the NCM, which has lost all its credibility, in protest against consistent attacks and killings of the members of the minority communities,“ she said. “The NCM should have played an active part in ensuring the dignity , security and constitutional rights of the minority communities,“ she added.

Hashmi goes on to cite incidents of violence against people from the minority community .“While a man was lynched to death by a mob near Delhi on a rumour that he had cow meat in his house, the whole state machinery was busy in getting the meat tested, instead of nabbing the culprits. A 16-year-old child is lynched and killed on a train for being Muslim or a techie killed for having a beard, two young boys killed and hanged from trees in Jharkhand ,“ she states in her letter.

On her allegations that the NCM had failed to take up the concerns of minorities, its chairman Rizvi said, “I would like to say that the commission is doing its job and such allegations are wrong. Even in the Ballabhgarh case we have sought a report from the authorities.“

Hashmi has also hit out at the chairperson personally over his “condemnable statements“. Rizvi recently courted controversy saying that those who cheered Pakistan's victory in the Champions Trophy final against India should be “deported“ to that country . The NCM chairman reacted, saying, “I see nothing condemnable in my remarks. All I said was that those who have their heart in Pakistan and are celebrating their victory can go there.“

The award carried no cash component before 2011 and used to come with a citation. The citation that Hashmi was given lauded her work in Gujarat after the 2002 riots and also in Kashmir . It also mentioned that her work invoked the “wrath of divisive forces“, leading to physical attacks as well.

