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JVP Gampaha District MP Anjan Umma issuing a press release has queried what right SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem has to portray himself and his party as the sole representatives of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka.

She has called on the Muslim people in the country to denounce in the strongest possible terms the statement made by Rauf Hakeem in his Thai Pongal day message to the LTTE leader Veluppilai Prabakaran. The JVP MP has asked on what basis the SLMC could call themselves the so-called sole representatives of the Muslims here at a time when they go down on bended knee to even issue Thai Pongal day greetings to Prabakaran.

The text of the statement.

SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem has reportedly sent Thai Pongal day greetings to LTTE leader Velupillai Prabakaran. We have no objections to the fact that Rauf Hakeem and Prabakaran greet themselves as and when they please.

But I deem it my responsibility as an MP who stands for the equality of Sinhala,Tamil and Muslim people in this country to correct certain comments made by the SLMC leader which may not augur well for the mutual co-existence of all the communities here.

Rauf Hakeem in his message says the SLMC is the sole representative of the Muslim community in this country. This comment has been made to hoodwink the ignorant masses of this country and it is our endeavour to expose the truth to the people as MPs of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna.

If one were to clearly study the performance of the SLMC at the last General Election it is obvious that only a handful of people had cast their votes in favour of the SLMC in certain Districts where the SLMC contested alone.

Also it is no secret that the SLMC took measures to delete the names of SLMC candidates from the UNP list in those Districts. Yet the majority of the Muslim people had cast their votes in favour of the parties with a national identity.

The Muslims here also know that the SLMC no longer stands for the true cause of their community which even prompted them to contest the election on the UNP ticket.

The SLMC knew fully well that had they contested alone they will be rejected en-bloc by the Muslims. What is most amusing in the SLMC leader's greeting to Prabakaran is that he has urged the LTTE Supremo to protect the Muslim community of the Eastern Province.

As the entire country would know by now it was none other than the barbaric and ruthless LTTE that slaughtered innocent Muslims in their hundreds and thousands at Kaththankudy and Eravur respectively in the Eastern Province way back in 1990.

Though the SLMC leader is pretty oblivious to the spate of atrocities committed thus far by Prabakaran, the people of Sri Lanka and the rest of the international community know only too well that Velupillai Prabakaran is none other than a megalomaniac who is hell bent on realising his so-called dream of establishing Eelam through the blood of innocent people in Sri Lanka.

But the hilarious part of this greeting message is that the SLMC leader who professes himself and his party to being the sole representative of the Muslims has stooped to the level of begging from the LTTE to spare the lives of the Muslims in the Eastern Province.

It is also tangible to note here that the LTTE has even gone to the extent of threatening the Muslim people in the villages of Eastern Sri Lanka asking them to pay ransom money.

The LTTE has also intimidated innocent Muslims there apart from kidnapping scores of Muslim youth and in such a context Rauf Hakeem's plea is a most damning statement made on behalf of the Muslim people.

The intention of Hakeem is none other than to sacrifice the innocent Muslim people to the blood thirsty terroristic organisation such as the LTTE and I call upon all communities be they Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Burgher, and Malay to come forward and reject the comments of the SLMC leader outright for the sake of this Motherland and her citizens."

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