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“We have been deeply concerned with two events that occurred recently…The attackers in both instances were members of our community…We are grieved and embarrassed,” they wrote in the letter.
“Bring the assailants to book not just in these two instances but in every single instance where Muslims are involved. They should not be allowed to get away because they happen to be Muslims (as is the growing perception). This will send out a message that members of one community are not being shielded or appeased (as most people believe),” the 46 prominent Muslim residents of Kolkata added.
They also requested the state government to “engage or encourage engagements with Muslim youth and their families across Kolkata in gender-sensitisation, civic consciousness and law-compliance, etc.”
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Another signatory, nutritionist Neha Hafiz, said there is a need to change the perception that the community was “getting more privileges than others”. “This is a problem that we cannot deny. We need to address it,” she added.
On June 10, junior doctors at the Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital were assaulted by family members of a Muslim patient who died there.