Muslim religious leaders at a peace meeting. (AFP)

Mumbai, Dec. 2: Lakshman Prasad Jadhav has voted Shiv Sena every time since losing his entire family in the 1993 riots. But the taxi driver says last week’s terror attack did not reopen old wounds, it opened his eyes.

On November 26, Jadhav was at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus when the militants struck. “I saw a Muslim woman in a burqa running with a baby in her arms. She suddenly came face to face with a terrorist,” he said.

“He shot her and the baby without batting an eyelid. My whole worldview changed in a moment.”

The terrorists probably hoped to revive the polarisation seen after the Mumbai riots and blasts of 1993, and also to an extent after the 2006 train bombings. But from priest to public, the one sentiment being expressed over and over is that the city will never again be hostage to the politics of hate.

“This is not about religion, this is about enemies of this nation, jealous of our economic progress,” Jadhav said. “Politicians have used religion to divide the country. This has to end.”

Of the 150-odd Indians dead in the terror attack, at least 48 are Muslims. But Syed Akhtar didn’t yet know this while making his point over coffee at the Willingdon Club.

“It’s time to dissociate terror and religion, to separate religion and politics. It’s the common man who gets caught in the crossfire,” the lawyer said.

Akhtar and wife Nilofer, who run an NGO, the Muslim Education Society, will gather executives, professionals and film stars at the Gateway of India on December 3. In a rather emotional move, they will ask people to reject the existing political parties and enter the political process themselves.

In another deeply emotional decision, the Muslim Council and the Jumma Masjid Trust have refused to allow the nine dead terrorists to be buried at the Bada Kabrastan graveyard, Marine Lines.

“We hope that other Muslim burial grounds, in this city or elsewhere, will also do the same. People who committed this heinous crime and killed innocent people are not Muslims,” said trust president Abraham Tai.

Unclaimed bodies thought to belong to Muslims are usually handed over to the nearest Muslim graveyard after three days. Police are now unsure what to do, and don’t think anyone will claim the corpses since the gunmen are thought to be from Pakistan.

The Jumma Masjid’s influence means none of the city’s seven other Muslim graveyards is likely to accept the bodies.

Scholars like Maulana Zubair Ahmed, however, felt that though the announcement reflected the community’s feelings, even militants and criminals deserve decent funerals.

“Whether a man is a drunkard, rapist or criminal, you must offer him a proper funeral. It’s a humane thing to do,” he said.

“If they (the trust) refuse to bear the cost of burial, it becomes the police’s duty to bear the expenses,” said senior inspector Jayant Sarmukadam.

Churches, mosques and Hindu satsangs have issued appeals for unity. At the Friday prayers, clerics across the city condemned the attacks.

“We asked people not to support — either physically or morally — any anti-national elements. Let no one, especially any political leader, shield them in the hope of garnering Muslim votes,” said Maulama Atahar, member of Mumbai’s Ulema Council.

Ramananda Swamy, whose Juhu-based Hari Om Satsang organises Gita readings, said: “Amid the loss and devastation, I see a silver lining. Nobody is blaming any religion in this city. There is a consensus that all parties have played vote-bank politics for far too long. But the people will not bite this bait any more.”

“At this critical hour in our lives, we appeal for unity and harmony,” Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan chief Noorjehan S.N. said.