News Desk
New Delhi
Amid rising persecution of minority groups in India, a former judge of India’s Supreme Court has issued a chilling warning to Muslims residing in the Hindu-dominated country.
Justice (retd) Markandey Katju, who is also an ex-chairman of the Press Council of India, has cautioned that “Muslims in India will be targeted in coming times, like Jews in [Nazi] Germany, as scapegoats”.
In a tweet, the former SC judge said the increased oppression of Muslims in India was because the ruling “BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] has no solution 2 [to] economic crisis, which is worsening”.
In an article published in an international magazine, ‘The Week’, earlier this month, Justice Katju wrote that “India has sown seeds for a large-scale guerrilla war in [occupied] Kashmir by stripping the territory of its special status.”
“The time has come to speak the truth that Kashmir will soon become what Vietnam was for the French and the Americans, Afghanistan for the Russians and Spain for Napoleon.”
Over the past two months, New Delhi’s barbaric actions against Muslims in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) have dominated global headlines.
However, India’s persecution of minority groups goes far beyond the geographical limits of the occupied Himalayan territory.
Violence and discrimination against minorities – particularly Muslims and Dalits (lower caste Hindus) – have increased exponentially under the watch of the right-wing BJP.
Released in June this year, the US State Department’s annual report on religious freedom also raised questions about the Narendra Modi-led government’s inability to curb violent attacks on the country’s Muslim population.
“Mob attacks by violent extremist Hindu groups against minority communities, especially Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumours that victims had traded or killed cows for beef,” said the report which examined attacks on minorities in India during 2018.
