Lucknow, Oct 27(IANS) Charging the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with stoking religious fundamentalism, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh Tuesday said using religion as a medium to spread hatred was not allowed by any faith.
Singh, who was in the city to attend a function of the Youth Congress-affiliated Anti Communal Forum, founded by Rahul Gandhi, noted that opportunists were present in every religion and they are responsible for every kind of dispute among people of the same or different religions.

No religion preaches hatred and it is wrong to term any religion or creed as terrorist, he said.

“It is because of its poor educational credentials that the Muslims are suspected to be terrorists. However, there are some communal and fundamentalist Muslim organisations that are confusing youths and diverting them towards anti-national activities,” Singh said.

“I would also like to call upon our young members of the National Students Union of India to make all possible efforts to fight the BJP’s Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) as it could be rightly termed as the breeding ground of the ideology of politics of hate amongst students and youths,” he added.

Film director Mahesh Bhatt, who was also present, said: “My mother was a Muslim belonging to Lucknow and what I have known and learnt about Islam is that a scared person cannot be a Muslim. Communalism is a bigger threat than secularism. I would like to urge the Muslims to break the age-old shackles and start focusing on earning knowledge. Education is the best weapon to fight any kind of problem.”

Zafar Ali Naqvi, Congress parliamentarian from Kheri, blamed some political parties in the state for playing the caste or religion card rather than striving for the development of the state.

He also rued the absence of “any strong leader who could raise issues related to us”.