London: UK’s Labour Party MP Jonathan Ashworth has slammed India over the violent hate crimes on Muslims and called on the British government to look into this extremely worrying situation in India and respond accordingly, TNIE reports.
MP Ashworth from Leicester South a constituency with a prominent Indian-origin electorate in the East Midlands region of England has written to foreign secretary and prime ministerial hopeful Jeremy Hunt last week stating that many of his constituents had raised concerns over Indian government not taking enough action on the rising issue targeting Muslims in the nation.
“I have been contacted by members of Muslim communities in my Constituency in regard to the on-going violent attacks on Muslims in India,” Ashworth wrote in his letter addressed to the senior Cabinet minister in the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
He called the hopeful prime ministerial Hunt to look into and respond over the “serious issue”, the shadow minister for health said:
“The situation in India is extremely worrying, there have been reports of religiously motivated killings, assaults, riots, discrimination, vandalism and actions restricting the right of individuals to practice their religious beliefs.
“My constituents are concerned that the Indian government is not doing enough to address the on-going attacks on Muslim communities in India.”
Responding to the letter, the FCO said that it engaged with India on the full range of human rights matters to build capacity and share expertise and condemns any instances of discrimination because of religion or belief, “regardless of the faith or country involved”.
“We are working to improve the situation for Muslim minorities in India, and our ‘Empowering Muslim youth’ project reached 150 young people, 20 teachers and over 100 educational institutions.
We have also enabled training for 900 minority students on faith issues in six universities across North India,” an FCO spokesperson said.
PM Modi reacting on the Jharkhand lynching has told last month that the incident has pained him and that the guilty shall be severely punished.