Muslims no longer minority in UP, rules HC

In a landmark judgement, the Allahabad High Court on Thursday held that Muslims cannot be treated as a religious minority anymore in Uttar Pradesh. Justice S N Srivastava gave the ruling after considering various criteria including the population of Muslims as enumerated in the census reports of 1951 and 2001. The judgment, which is likely to cause polarisation among political parties, comes two days ahead of the first phase of the crucial Assembly elections in UP starting on Saturday. The court said the UP government should treat members of the Muslim community as equal to those belonging to the non-minority communities without discrimination in accordance with law. The judgment was given on a writ petition filed by a madarssa of Ghazipur district, challenging out-of-turn grant-in-aid to certain other minority institutions. The court also asked the UP government to treat all Muslim institutions applying for grant-in-aid at par with non-minority institutions without any discrimination