Badrudding Ajmal Apologises, Retracts Statement Advising Hindus to Marry at Early Age
NEW DELHI, Dec 3: The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief and Assam MP Maulana Badruddin Ajmal on Saturday issued an apology for his controversial statement advising Hindus to follow the Muslim pattern of marrying at early age to produce more children.
“I apologise for inadvertently hurting the sentiments of the people of Assam. I take back my statement,” he said, reacting to the criticisms. Mr. Ajmal courted controversy by advising Hindus to marry at a young age for producing more children like Muslims.
He also ruffled some feathers by indicating Hindu men do not have it in them to reproduce when they wed at 40 years after enjoying a near-conjugal life with more than one woman. “Muslim boys and girls marry at 22 and 18. Hindu men do not let babies be born till the age of 40 to save money but enjoy with one to three illegal wives,” Mr. Ajmal told a news channel in southern Assam’s Karimganj on Friday.
“They [Hindu men] marry after 40 if forced by their parents or for some other reasons. Such an age is not ideal for having babies. You get a good harvest only if you plough a fertile land on time,” the AIUDF leader who represents the Dhubri Lok Sabha seat said, suggesting the ‘Muslim formula’ of marriage for Hindus to ensure a large family.
He asked Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to counter the alleged “love jihad” with something similar on Muslim girls. Ranjib Kumar Sharma, spokesperson of the BJP’s Assam unit slammed Mr. Ajmal for “trying to continue the culture of building harems that Muslim invaders had started after killing Hindu men.”
The State Congress unit said the police should register a case against the AIUDF leader for posing law-and-order problems. “Some organisations avowedly fighting for the cause of Hindus are surprisingly silent. We cannot tolerate such a communal statement that he made to counter our CM’s remarks on love jihad during the Gujarat election campaign,” Congress MLA and Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, Debabrata Saikia, said.
Calling the AIUDF leader an agent of the BJP, the Trinamool Congress burnt his effigy in Guwahati on Saturday and demanded his arrest for insulting Hindus. The Trinamool Congress also lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against Mr. Ajmal in Guwahati while the local unit of the Assam Jatiya Parishad filed a complaint against him for “communal” and “anti-women” remarks at the Hailakandi Police Station in southern Assam.
(Manas Dasgupta)
