Hassan Cheruppa Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – A center to carry out studies and researches about the issues facing Indian minorities and to arrive at some concrete solutions will be established in the city of Calicut in the southern state of Kerala. This will be part of a huge cultural center named after the late world-renowned Indian Muslim leader and veteran parliamentarian Ebrahim Suleiman Sait, according to a senior official of the center. Ahammad Devarkovil, chairman of the committee, which is establishing Ebrahim Suleiman Sait Cultural Center, said that the four-story building complex covering a total area of 4,000 sq. meters is estimated to cost 100 million Indian rupees (SR6 million). Addressing a press conference in Sharafiya's Impala Garden Restaurant on Thursday, Devarkovil unveiled plans to complete the project within two years. The sprawling center includes a human resource training center, students' dormitory, conference hall plus a digital library. K.P. Ismail and Basheer Baderi are the general convener and treasurer of the newly formed committee respectively. “The center will focus mainly on highlighting the major contributions and activities of Sait as a champion of India's weaker sections and minorities, especially Muslims. We think it is high time to shed light on Sait's unblemished public life and his selfless efforts to protect the rights of the weaker sections so as to present him as a role model for India's younger generation,” said Devarkovil, who is also secretary of All India committee of Indian National League (INL), founded by Sait. The fund for the center will be raised primarily from party workers and well-wishers. Preliminary works to establish a similar center in Delhi are also in progress, he added. A seven-time member of India's Parliament from Kerala, Sait was the national president of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) for two decades until he broke away from the party after the 1992 Babri Mosque demolition and formed INL. Sait, who died on 27, April 2005, was one among the founders of major Indian Muslim bodies, including the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Majlise Mushawara, All India Milli Council and Babri Masjid Movement Coordination Committee. Devarkovil said that a trust was formed in 2012 to commemorate Suleiman Sait. “The Mahbube Millat Charitable Trust is mainly focusing on humanitarian and philanthropic activities.” “We have been distributing medicines free of cost to the poor patients at Medical College Hospital, Calicut, since last year. Our volunteers are there at the hospital on a daily basis, in addition to assist in operating an ambulance and to serve the poor patients,” he said while unveiling plans to expand the trust's activities to all medical college hospitals across Kerala, beginning with Trivandrum hospital next month. Devarkovil, who is also chairman of the trust, demanded of the Kerala government that the new government medical college hospital at Manjeri in Malappuram district to be named after Suleiman Sait as he represented Manjeri in India's Parliament for five terms in a row. Indian Muslim Cultural Center (IMCC) Saudi National Committee President Kunhavutty A Qader, Secretary A.M. Abdullakkutty, Jeddah President K.P Abubakar, Secretary A.P Abdul Ghafour, and former President Hamza Pallikkara also attended the press conference.
