Making a fervent plea for Muslim reservation, Hyderabad-based Asaduddin Owaisi, president of the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, said on Thursday that Indian Muslims would pull themselves up by the bootstraps if the Centre and the Maharashtra government granted them the crutch of reservation.

“We do not seek the fish, but merely the hook by which to catch fish. Give us reservation and we will fight our way to the top,” Mr. Owaisi said, addressing a packed audience at a meeting here.

Launching a broadside against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party, Mr. Owaisi said while BJP president Amit Shah was given a clean chit in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, innocent Muslim youths, who were falsely accused in terror cases, were languishing in jails across the country.

Even after seven months, the BJP government at the Centre failed to take the interests of the minorities, be it Dalits, Muslims or the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) into account, he said.

Observing that few Muslims occupied the upper echelons of civil and other government services in Maharashtra, the MIM chief exhorted Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to sanction Rs. 3,000 crore for the uplift of Muslims and other minorities.

Condemning radical Islamic terror and violence, Mr. Owaisi said the Charlie Hebdo attacks and the recent burning of a Jordanian pilot by the Islamic State militant group were instances of “sheer barbarity”.