On December 15, Thursday, a so-called activist and social worker, Aasif Mujtaba, said that Jamia University was not created to become a centre of excellence but for “Muslims to learn to resist.”
Aasif Mujtaba, along with journalist Ghazala Ahmad, was invited to Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) to speak on the topic: ‘Relevance of Universities in Shaping Public Opinion’ in the context of challenges and opportunities in post-2019 India. The talk was organised to mark the third anniversary of the 2019 anti-CAA protests at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh.
On the 3rd anniversary of #ShaheenBagh movement , the largest muslim resistance movement post Independence , I shall be speaking on “Relevance of Universities in shaping public opinion” at Aligarh Muslim University.#ShaheenBagh #NoCAA #NoNRC pic.twitter.com/jI39ruE1sM
— Aasif Mujtaba (@MujtabaAasif) December 14, 2022
Instigating AMU students against the government, Mujtaba said, “ You are in a campus built on Qurbani (sacrifice) Jamia was not created to be a centre of excellence of mass communication or something, Jamia is a campus built on Qurbani it was not a Qurbani of vice-chancellor, the purpose of AMU is not to produce engineers and doctors only but produce visible and hearable political voices which see the government in the eye and say that they are thieves and have malicious intentions. Jamia is a centre created for Muslims to learn how to resist, Ye Hamare Khoon Mein Hai. Institutions like AMU will have no relevance without political voices.”
Aasif Mujtaba further called the AMU students to resist the ‘zaalim’. “ Aap wo abr hain jise har ek Zaalim par barasna hai.”
Part of my hour long talk at the Arts Faculty Lawn at Aligarh Muslim University. The occasion was to remember the state sponsored violence on December 15 , 2019 unleashed on peaceful protesting students against the communal #CAA pic.twitter.com/2fAfonGNNc
— Aasif Mujtaba (@MujtabaAasif) December 16, 2022
Say it on the barricade- La ilaha illlalah
— Aasif Mujtaba (@MujtabaAasif) December 15, 2022
Say it on the lathicharge- La ilaha illlalah#ResistanceDay #ShaheenBagh
We will reborn from the ashes of carnage. Inshaallah. pic.twitter.com/6ja3R1pZPc
According to the website of Left Word Books, a Delhi-based publishing house that reflects the leftist ideology, Aasif Mujtaba is a Research Scholar at the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Delhi and is currently serving as an Executive Committee member, Treasurer & Data Protection Officer at IIT Delhi Alumni Association. Mujtaba is also the organiser of the Shaheen Bagh protest along with Sharjeel Imam.
It is pertinent to mention here that Aasif Mujtaba is also the founder of Miles2Smiles Foundation, the organisation that had set up a learning centre at a Rohingya camp at Nuh in Haryana. The organisation had raised funds for the construction work for the Rohingya Refugees at Nuh in Haryana and had also built housing units, he claimed on Twitter in January this year. It is worth noting that Nuh belongs to Mewat in Haryana, the region that is notoriously known as “Mini Pakistan“, where tales of abduction, rapes and forced conversions of Hindus have been routinely reported.
Mujtaba’s Foundation also launched a fundraising campaign in April this year to help the ‘victims’ of anti-encroachment drives across the country. Various state governments, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and the New Delhi Municipal Corporation authorities in the national capital, had razed down building belonging to encroachers, following which a campaign has been launched, apparently with the aim of helping the ‘victims’ of the anti-encroachment drive.
