The National Commission for Minorities led by chairman Tarlochan Singh today met Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders Giriraj Kishore, Pravin Togadia and Dr Surendra Jain to discuss their grouses against the minorities, especially Muslims.

Dr M S Usmani, a member of the NCM, later told reporters, "It is paramount for the minority community to have the sympathy of the majority for peaceful co-existence. The Constitution alone cannot guarantee peace."

Tarlochan Singh said, "The commission wants to maintain harmony in the country and our attempt was to remove the irritants of the majority."

Togadia termed it a 'historic meeting towards peaceful co-existence'.

Singh said the VHP has three major 'irritants'. "The VHP wants minority institutions and leaders to condemn any terrorist attack taking place in India, specially Kashmir. They want strongly worded condemnations from the Muslims.

"The second issue, which was termed a fundamental issue by the VHP leaders, relates to three terms -- kafir (infidel), jihad (holy war), and dar-ul-Islam (place of Islam)."

According to Singh, the VHP leaders said removal of these three words from the dictionary of Islamic theology would ease tensions to a great extent.

The third issue, he said, is to agree that all religions are equal and no religion is closer to God than the others.

The modernisation of madrassas was also discussed. The VHP leaders said merely modernising madrassas would not help as destructive minds can use government-gifted computers for their own evil purposes. Togadia emphasised the need to 'correct' the syllabus which, he claimed, considers Mahmud of Ghazni and Aurangzeb heroes instead of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel.

NCM member Ahmad Rashid Shervani has been asked to look into the VHP's charges against madrassas.

At the meeting, Togadia's trishul distribution programme and the resultant communal tension in some places was also discussed.

Asked the commission's opinion on the subject, Singh avoided giving an answer, but Dr Usmani said, "Trishul is a part of the religious beliefs of Hindus. It is not distributed to fight wars."

He compared the tridents to the kirpans (daggers) of Sikhs. "Sikhs can't be told to not carry kirpans," he pointed out.

Turning to Togadia, who was also present, he added, "The meeting went very well. We told Togadia, shola (fire) nahi shabnam (dew) baniye."