In a welcome move, several prominent Islamic clerics have joined hands to educate Muslims on the necessity for vaccination against polio that has been on the rise particularly among children belonging to the community.
Some of the maulanas have volunteered to even join the vaccination teams, facing resistance from the community in several places. They will visit villages, blocks and localities during the immunisation drive. They will inform people that the polio vaccine is safe. They will also bring children to booths for immunisation.
Lucknow's prominent maulanas met on Monday afternoon under the aegis of Rotary International that has been closely involved with the polio eradication campaign.
Uttar Pradesh accounts for as many as 438 polio cases. That was the highest in the country.
A seven-member executive committee and 17-member working committee of ulemas were constituted to review the polio vaccination drive.
"We will personally go with the vaccination teams to those areas where Muslim families have shown unwillingness to let their kids take the polio drops," Maulana Khalid Rasheed, the naib imam of Lucknow's idgah and head of Firangi Mahal, an old and widely acclaimed Islamic institution, told this scribe.
Rasheed, who was also the chairperson of Ulema Council of India, said, "We are also going to urge the government to take equal interest in ensuring basic health amenities in areas where they are carrying out the anti-polio drive."
Expressing concern over the lack of awareness among members of the community, the Imam of the medieval Tile Wali Masjid Maulana Fazlur Rehman Waizi said a child crippled with polio is not only a concern for the parents, but for the whole society.
"If one child is affected by polio, the chances that other children would also be infected looms large. Earlier, ulemas were not concerned about the vaccination drive nor did the government agencies include them in the eradication programme. But now we have come together to fight polio since majority of the cases being reported are among Muslim children," he said.
"Yes, we have also received reports from our end that Muslims were resisting the anti-polio drive as they had certain misconceptions and suspicions about polio drops," he added. "It is therefore the duty of the ulemas to visit the areas and allay doubts through awareness programmes."
Maulana Saidur Rehman Azmi, principal of Lucknow-based Islamic University, Nadwa-tul-Ulema, popularly known as Nadwa, attributed the suspicions to reports about children getting affected by polio even after taking the polio drops. "The government should set up an inquiry if the vaccines were post-expiry date or the cold chain was not maintained when they were being transported to these areas," he asserted.