Muslims in the North and East suffered most due to LTTE - Azwer

by Dulmin Samarasinghe

When the Muslims were driven away mercilessly by the LTTE from the North and the East, they were given asylum and looked after by Sinhala communities in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, MP AL Haj A.H.M. Azwer told an interview with ITN's Hathveni Paya program recently. Leaders such as Mudliyars M.S. Karriapper, M. Ibrahim Lebbe, A. Sinne Lebbe and A.R.M. Aboobucker who were elected from the East and Dr. Badiuddin Mahmud who was born in Matara, H.S. Ismail and Naina Marikkar (Puttalam) served their people by being close to the Colombo leadership.

Muslims in Jaffna and the East suffered most at the hands of LTTE terrorists during 30 years of terrorism said MP Azwer. The late M.H.M. Ashroff formed the Muslim United Front and joined the late A. Amirthalingam of the Tamil United Front to serve his people. Ashroff flatly refused when the terrorists forced him to agree to the amalgamation of the North and the East.

He even left his sick mother at Maruthamunai-Kalmunai and went to Colombo only with his suitcase when his life was at stake.

MP Azwer said that Muslim Congress members should be reminded of this so that they would not be a party to the conspiracy hatched by Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Vigneswaran and the Diaspora who are trying to get them to amalgamate the North and the East. He said he played a major role as the then State Minister of Muslim Religious Affairs to settle a large number of Muslims from Jaffna, Mannar and Mullaitivu.

MP Azwer said that Vigneswaran could do a great service to the Muslim community if he would rebuild the house of the late A.M.A. Azeez, one of the greatest Tamil scholars and educationists born in Jaffna. His house in Moor Street was razed to the ground by LTTE terrorists.

Instead of petitioning Geneva to appoint a Commission to inquire into the human rights violations, the Chief Minister should initiate an inquiry into the human rights violation of Senator Azeez and 75,000 of his people who were driven away from Jaffna by LTTE terrorists. Vigneswaran should consider this a duty since he was not only an ex-judge but also a well-known Tamil scholar, he said.

The Khadija Girls' School in Moor Street was destroyed and Osmania College was damaged.

LTTE terrorists brutally attacked the homes of Quazi M.M. Sultan, the first Muslim Mayor of Jaffna, Supreme Court Judge M.M. Abdul Cader and celebrated Tamil writer and novelist Zubair Ilangeeran, he said.