SRINAGAR – Kashmir Deputy Mufti Azam Nasir-Ul-Islam has said that Muslimsin the South Asian nation should get a separate country as they are boundto live in pathetic conditions.

“Muslims are being harassed in India in the name of love jihad, cowvigilantism and what not. The population of Muslims is second largest inIndia. Pakistan was formed with only 17 crore people. If the Muslimscontinue to suffer in India, then we will have to form a new country. TheMuslim community should ask for a separate country,” Azam Nasir-Ul-Islamsaid at a press conference in Srinagar.

He further said that government is not paying heed to the problems ofMuslim community and hence they should demand for a separate country, theAsian News Agency reported.

“Indian Muslims are living in a pathetic condition. Government is notlistening to them. So what is the way out? Way out is to separate fromIndia,” he told ANI.

Mufti Nasir ul Islam, who is also the Vice-chairman of Jammu and KashmirMuslim Personal Board, was nominated by his father and Grand Mufti,Bashir-Ud-Din, as his successor for the coveted post in the Supreme Courtof Islamic Shariat in 2012.

He is a post graduate in Arabic and also holds a degree in law. He remainedthe legal consultant with the Ministry of Justice, Government of Abu Dhabi,till 2006 when he resigned to start his own legal consultancy in MiddleEast.

He was appointed as the Deputy Mufti Azam at the Supreme Court of IslamicShariat (J&K) in the year 2000.

Communal and religious divisions are widening in India, with minoritiesfeeling they are not sufficiently protected. Nearly 80% of India’spopulation of 1.3 billion is Hindu, while Muslims make up 14.2%.

For the most part, the two communities have lived peacefully, but religiousresentment has always simmered below the surface since 1947 when India andPakistan were carved out of a single nation.

The parting was bloody – between half a million and a million people werekilled in religious violence.