Communal violence in Ramazan
LONELY, oppressed, ridiculed, frightened and surrounded. Not only that! Many more arrows of abuse are following Indian minorities. What is happening in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi etc?
Ramadan the ninth month of the Islamic calendar is observed by Muslims worldwide as a time of fasting, prayer, reflection, giving back to the community in the form of charity and engaging in humanitarian activities.
However, RSS and BJP anti-Muslim hatred intensified during this Ramadan. On April 6, a terrible incident took place in Karoli district of the Indian state of Rajasthan.
A group of Hindu extremists gathered in the area, forcing Muslims to chant “Jay Shri Ram” threatening them to be tortured if they refuse.
Police stand by as silent spectator. The silence of the institutions further encourages the extremists and they start burning down the houses of Muslims one after another.
The next day, on April 7, a procession of Hindus started on the occasion of Nooratri in Gahmar village of Ghazipur area of Uttar Pradesh, India.
When the participants of the procession reach in front of a mosque, they start chanting extremely provocative slogans.
Sunita Singh encourages her workers, as a result of which extremists enter the mosque with their saffron flags.
They waved saffron flags and chanted provocative slogans on the mosque grounds and on the roof while dancing continued.
On April 9, a video about the Sitapur area of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh goes viral. A man named Bajrang Muni, dressed in saffron, sat in a car in front of the mosque and addressed his followers.
During his address to a procession on the occasion of a Hindu festival, Babang Dahl was heard saying that he would evict Muslim girls from their homes and rape them in public.
He also said that no one can stop him from doing so. On April 11, a procession of Hindus leaves Khargone district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
Participants in the procession, armed with swords and daggers, go in front of a mosque and play religious songs loudly on the sound system.
Although security personnel are present with the procession, no attempt is made by them to stop the procession in front of the mosque.
The provincial government has blamed 77 people, all of them Muslims for stone-pelting which not only injured the procession participants but also a DIG and SP.
Then the statement of the Minister of State for Home Affairs Nartam Mishra comes to light.
Immediately after this announcement, heavy machinery is delivered to the area and it is announced that the people in the houses and shops should leave these places, otherwise their lives will not be taken care of.
Immediately after this announcement, the process of demolishing Muslim houses and shops begins.
In the style of Israeli operations against the Palestinians, 16 Muslim houses and 29 shops are reduced to rubble.
Muslims are forced to stand by and watch the spectacle of their destruction in silence. On 20th April, after the Hindu-Muslim riots in the Jahangirpuri area of New Delhi, Modi government bulldozed 20 Muslim properties and also demolished the terrace of the mosque.
The operation lasted two hours. Nine bulldozers reached Jahangir Puri, a Muslim colony located 25 km away from the Indian Parliament, which started demolishing Muslim shops as soon as they arrived.
Asaduddin Owaisi, President of All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-e-Muslimeen, said that only Muslim properties were being demolished in Jahangirpuri.
Instead of condemning the incident and taking strict action against the extremists, Hindu Mahasabha President Swami Chakrapani said for creating communal violence in India, they took Supari (Money) from Pakistan.
In addition to these incidents against Muslims during the month of Ramadan in April, the campaign to remove loudspeakers from mosques is also in full swing.
In this regard, the state of Maharashtra differs from other states. Raj Thackeray, the leader of Navnirman Senastate, made it clear that the use of loudspeakers in mosques will be stopped in any case.
After the announcement of Raj Thackeray, “Hanuman Chalisa” is now being played on loudspeakers in front of mosques.
The demand is that either loudspeakers be removed from the mosques or Hanuman Chalisa will continue to be played in front of the mosques.
Mohit Kumar, a wealthy BJP leader, tweeted that any Hindu who needed a loudspeaker for the temple should contact him and he would be given a loudspeaker free of cost.
All Hindus should have one voice. This is just a glimpse of what happened to Muslims in India during the month of April.
One can only guess at the overall number of such incidents. It is now clear that all the happenings in India for “Ram Raj” is being done under a regular plan. The scary thing is that now the BJP government is openly supporting the Hindu extremists.
The United States has once again expressed grave concern over the situation, which the Indian Government has strongly condemned, saying that if the United States is concerned about human rights abuses in India, then India should also be concerned about human rights in the United States.
—The writer is contributing columnist, based in Islamabad.
