The entire Muslim community in the country and the Samajwadi Party are being targeted in connection with the July 11 blasts in Mumbai, Samajwadi Party MP Abu Asim Azmi said on Saturday.
"Muslims are made to feel as if all of them are terrorists. I would like to tell the government that if 20 lakh Muslims pour onto the streets, it will be very difficult to control the situation," Azmi told reporters.
Referring to the recent violence in Bhiwandi in Thane district over the construction of a police station near a mosque, Azmi said poliice were committing 'excesses' in the wake of the lynching of two policemen there.
"People in Bhiwandi have started leaving the place and are afraid. If these things continue, I will defy the ban on my entry into Bhiwandi and over 50,000 people there will court arrest under my leadership," he warned.
Azmi demanded a judicial probe into the blasts on Mumbai's trains, the Bhiwandi violence and events that followed the recent desecration of the bust of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's late wife Meenatai.
"Police are asking me all kinds of questions. They even want to know why I went to Khandala or Kolkata. I am under surveillance," he said.
Azmi alleged that Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil had not even met families of two persons killed in the police firing in Bhiwandi earlier this month.
The two persons were part of a group that was protesting against the construction of a police station on a plot that Azmi claimed belonged to the Kabristan Committee (burial ground committee).
He denied that he had incited people in Bhiwandi to lynch two policemen following the firing. "I have high regard for policemen. In fact, my wife cooks and serves food for policemen who are deployed for my security," he said.
"I feel that considering the opposition of the local people, the police station should be built in a cosmopolitan area where there is a mix of Hindus and Muslims. The present location has 100 percent Muslim population," he said.
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