Kolkata, Apr 13 (PTI) Amid violence during anti-Waqf (Amendment) Act agitation in Murshidabad district of West Bengal, Islamic cleric Moulana Shafique on Sunday said attacking people in the name of protests is against the tenets of Islam and should be deplored.

Shafique, the Imam of Nakhoda Masjid, an over 100-year-old mosque of Kolkata, also claimed that majority of the people from other religions are against the newly enacted Act.

“Those who carried out attacks on innocent people cannot be part of any democratic protest against the Waqf (Amendment) Act. What they did goes against the tenets of Islam. Everyone has the right to observe and follow his own religion,” Shafique told a press conference.

Asserting that the secular people of Bengal would not be provoked by trouble mongers, Shafique alleged that some vested interests who want to divide the people of West Bengal and foment disturbances for political gains have hatched a conspiracy.” He urged members of every community not to be swayed by their game plan.

The senior cleric, accompanied by Imams of several mosques in the city, said they were looking forward to the proposed meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on April 16.

The CM is scheduled to hold a meeting with religious leaders of the Muslim community on that day of the issue of the Waqf (Amendment) Act.

“(In that meeting) Bengal will show the way to peacefully and democratically fight the legislation with the participation of various communities. Bengal will live up to the tradition of maintaining harmony among different communities which has been our hallmark for centuries,” Shafique said.

At least three people were killed, several others injured and a number of shops torched after protests against the Waqf (Amendment) Act turned violent in Suti and Samserganj blocks of Murshidabad district. Hundreds of people also started to flee those areas since the violence began on Friday.

Several vehicles, including police vans, were set on fire, shops and houses were vandalised, stones were hurled at security forces, and roads were blocked as violence rocked the district on Friday.

Prohibitory orders under section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) have been imposed in the violence-hit areas, and the internet has been suspended. BSF personnel have been deployed in strife-hit Suti, Dhuliyan and Samserganj areas. PTI SUS NN