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Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar, Amir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Zeenat Aman, Arshad Warsi and now Emraan Hashmi…the list is swelling with each passing day. They are celebrities who have been denied a house in the housing societies of some posh localities of Mumbai like Juhu and Bandra only because they belonged to Muslim community. They are celebrities, so their cases have found enough spaces in the newspapers, that too in the front pages. But there might be hundreds of such cases which go unnoticed and unreported as they are not VIPs and the media is not interested in writing such stories.
In the recent case, Bollywood actor Emraan Hashmi was looking for a house in the posh Pali Hill area in Bandra but the housing society reportedly refused to give him a no-objection certificate even after he had paid the token amount of Rs 1 lakh.
"The seller, Suvarna, has now informed us that the society will not give us an NOC and it has blocked the sale. We have information that this has been done as they are discriminating against Muslims and will not allow any Muslim in the society," an angry Hashmi said. The society had mostly Hindus and a couple of Catholic families.
Not too long ago, Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar had also made allegations on the same lines. “Yes, I was denied a house in Mumbai because Javed and I are Muslims. And it was not because we are non-vegetarians – the family I was getting it from were non-vegetarian. It wasn’t because we were film people either, because a very big film star also lives there”, Shabana had said.
Deeply disturbed and insulted, Emraan has now filed complaint with the State Minorities' Commission, demanding action against the housing society members which denied him a flat because he is a Muslim.
The Minorities' Commission may send summons to the society members, and the society members may find some alibis to prove their point. Allegations and counter-allegations may fly thick and fast in the coming days. These are routine things in such cases.
But, what is worrying is the trend of growing discrimination against a particular community in the city. It is a fact that the Muslim terrorists have wreaked enough havoc in the city which no Mumbaikar will be able to forget. But, what is to be kept in mind is the fact that all this is the work of a handful of Muslim terrorists. That does not mean all Muslims are terrorists. If the city is suspicious about the Muslim community, it can do so with the strangers but not with the celebrities whose credentials are time tested.
If we continue to discriminate against a community, it will go against the Metropolitan character of the city which should not happen. Such actions will only help alienate the community further from the society and create hatred between different religions.
