By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI – The renewed incidents of mob violence against Muslims on the pretext of carrying cow meat or eating beef, as reported recently on a running train in Maharashtra and in Haryana’s Charkhi Dadri, have revealed a dangerous trend of the community being targeted, while a power struggle wages within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The latest incidents of anti-Muslim violence have all elements of communal hatred, innocents being targeted, the government turning a blind eye, and the police registering the cases in mild provisions of criminal law, which will ensure that the culprits will be let off with little or no penalties. Muslims are set to face more immediate and serious threats in their daily lives in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third regime.
A 72-year-old Muslim man, Ashraf Ali Sayyed Hussain, was attacked on August 28 on a train near the town of Igatpuri in Nashik district by men who claimed he was carrying beef. A video of the assault went viral on August 31, after which several social media users urged the police to take stringent action.
Hussain, who was travelling from Maharashtra’s Jalgaon to Kalyan to meet his daughter, said that the attack on him on board the train was unprovoked. “The train was crowded, and I was standing until the train got close to Nashik railway station,” Hussain said. “One young girl who was seated in the upper berth got down from her seat, and I occupied the place.”
Hussain added: “A young man, around 24-25 years of age, who was standing next to me, asked me to make space for him. Since there was no room to squeeze another person, I asked him if he was thinking of sitting on my lap.” This angered the group of young men, according to Hussain.
The men, who were under 30 years old, were on their way to Mumbai for a police recruitment examination. When the Kalyan station arrived, Hussain tried to get hold of his bag that had two plastic jars of buffalo meat, Hussain said in his complaint. The consumption of buffalo meat is legal in Maharashtra. “The men suddenly demanded I open my bag and show it to them,” Hussain said.
“They started gheraoing me and asked what I had in my bag. The men started punching me and abusing me.” The elderly man said he could hear some of the men say “throw him [Hussain] out of the moving train”. Hussain said the men charged at him with blows even as he resisted the attack. “They targeted blows to my eyes and my chest,” he said.
The elderly man said that some other passengers asked the attackers to stop assaulting Hussain, but to no avail. Hussain was quoted as having said that the men also threatened to kill him and rape the women of his family if he complained to the police. The men threatened him, boasting about their connections with Bajrang Dal.
On September 1, three men identified as Akash Ahwad, Nilesh Ahire and Jayesh Mohite were arrested in the case. However, they were released on bail on the same day as they were booked under bailable sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to unlawful assembly, rioting, wrongful restraint, voluntarily causing hurt, intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, criminal intimidation and mischief.
The Government Railway Police subsequently added two more sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita on uttering words intended to hurt religious sentiments, and robbery or dacoity with an attempt to cause death or grievous hurt. Of these, the second provision is non-bailable. A railway court in the city of Kalyan near Mumbai has since cancelled the bail granted to three men among the group of persons who assaulted and abused Hussain.
In an earlier incident, a 26-year-old migrant from West Bengal was beaten to death and another person was injured by cow vigilantes in Haryana’s Charkhi Dadri in the last week of August, over suspicions that they had eaten beef. Five people were arrested and two juveniles in conflict with the law were detained on charges of being involved with the attack.
According to the First Information Report, on the morning of August 27, a group of young men came to Sabir, a scrap dealer living in a slum area near Badhra village, and took him to the local bus stand claiming that they had some scrap to dispose of. The accused also called another migrant, Assam native Asiruddin, to the bus stand and allegedly beat up the duo there. When passers-by intervened, they took the two to some other location on their motorcycles. Sabir was later found dead near a canal in Bhandwa village. Asiruddin was found dumped at another location and is currently under treatment in hospital.
Sabir is survived by his wife and two-year-old daughter. According to the police in Charkhi Dadri, the accused were members of a cow vigilante gang and had beaten up the victims because they suspected that they had eaten beef. The people who intervened when the gang was beating up the duo made a video of the attack, but did not report it to the police.
The accused were identified as Abhishek, Ravinder, Mohit, Kamaljeet, and Sahil. Sabir’s brother-in-law Shujauddin, the complainant in the case, said that he, along with his father and sister’s family had lived in the slum area for the last five years, but had never faced any such trouble before. Shujauddin, 20, and his father were returning home after a morning of rag-picking work when the vigilante gang confronted them, saying that they ate beef, and took them to Badhra police station.
“I was at the police station when I got a call from my sister saying that some men had come and taken along her husband on the pretext of selling some scrap. I reported it to the police immediately. He was later found dead near a canal,” said Shujauddin, who has returned to his native village to perform the burial of Sabir. He demanded the strictest possible punishment for the accused, saying that he wanted justice for his brother-in-law.
Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind chief Maulana Arshad Madani has claimed that the mob lynching of the Muslim migrant worker could be a planned one aimed at creating communal mobilization ahead of the upcoming Assembly election in the state. “This lynching could be a planned one because the Assembly elections are soon to be held in Haryana. So, it is possible that communal elements could have done this to create communal mobilization,” Madani said in a statement released by Jamiat.
He further stated that merely condemning such incidents was not enough and demanded that political parties, especially the secular ones, come out openly and take steps to get laws made against mob violence. “This lynching has proved that communal elements consider themselves above the law. They are taking the law into their own hands and targeting a particular community based on the victim’s religion,” the statement quoted the Jamiat chief as saying.
That such brutality was not stopping despite strict instructions by the Supreme Court was saddening, Madani noted, adding that this clearly showed that people indulging in such actions do so with political support and protection and that their morale was high.
These two latest incidents of brutal violence against Muslims in public places in the BJP-ruled states have also forced Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to criticize the BJP government at the Centre for being a “mute spectator” in the face of ongoing attacks on minority communities in the country.
In a tweet, the Gandhi scion, who is the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, condemned the rise of hate-fuelled violence, which he claimed was being perpetrated by mobs emboldened by the government’s inaction. “Those who have climbed the ladder of power by using hatred as a political weapon are continuously establishing a reign of fear across the country. Hateful elements hidden in the form of mobs are openly spreading violence, challenging the rule of law,” Rahul Gandhi said.
“Attacks on minorities, especially Muslims, are continuing and the government is watching as a mute spectator. The authority of law must be established by taking the strictest action against such anarchic elements,” Rahul Gandhi said, sharing screenshots of the two incidents which have been doing the rounds on social media.
“Any attack on the communal unity of India and the rights of Indians is an attack on the Constitution, which we will not tolerate at all. No matter how much effort the BJP makes, we will win this historic battle to unite India against hatred,” the Congress leader added.
The violence against Muslims on the pretext of cow smuggling or killing now seems to be rebounding in the majority community, as an incident took place recently in which a class XII student was chased in a car and shot dead on August 23 by a group of five cow vigilantes who mistook the boy for a cattle smuggler.
During interrogation, the accused, who have been arrested, revealed that on the night of August 23, they had received information that some suspected cattle smugglers driving two SUVs were doing recce in the city. They mistook the victim, Aryan Mishra, and his friends, Shanky and Harshit, for cattle smugglers and followed their car for about 30 kilometres near the Gadhpuri toll on the Delhi-Agra National Highway.
The accused told the police that when they asked the victim’s car to be stopped, the driver accelerated, following which they opened fire and Mishra was shot dead near the Gadhpuri toll in Palwal. All the accused have been sent to judicial custody after being produced in a court and the illegal weapon and the car used in the crime have been recovered.
During the last 10 years of the BJP’s rule in the country, the dehumanized nature of the society has been on display, as the nation has witnessed the lynching of Muslims, Hindu mobs entering the mosques and flying saffron flags at their minarets, raising anti-Muslim slogans, and several such things that are anti-human. These incidents have been reported mainly from the BJP-ruled states where the assailants seem to have got a free hand.
According to the noted academician and activist, Prof. Apoorvanand, the renewed attacks on Muslims are being witnessed because the ideology of the BJP, which is essentially anti-Muslim and anti-Christian, cannot survive without inflicting violence on these minority groups. The Muslims and other minorities will remain under attack in India as long as the BJP remains in a position of power – alone or within a coalition government.
Prof. Apoorvanand said what is more concerning today, beyond the party’s continued instigation of violence against Muslims, is the newfound willingness of all state institutions like the police and civil administration to execute these ideologically motivated attacks. Completely aligned with BJP positions, they are now proactively harassing and persecuting Muslims and discriminating against them without being forced to do so by the political leadership.
According to Prof. Apoorvanand, the renewed cycle of violence is the result of an inner power struggle within the BJP. PM Narendra Modi is trying to shift responsibility for electoral losses to state leaders like Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. By dialling up the persecution of Muslims in his state, Adityanath is communicating that he is actually more cruel and committed to the cause than Modi, and therefore deserving of his position.
There seems to be some truth to this line of argument. Not only in Uttar Pradesh but all across BJP-led states, it appears the authorities are racing each other to increase the pressure on Muslims to prove their Hindu nationalist credentials and cement their positions within the party. Regrettably, when it comes to the BJP, even major electoral upsets and internal power struggles appear to translate into further violence against Muslims rather than more thoughtful governance.
