Pregnant woman beaten unconscious while out to pick up daughter from school
Date: 25 February 2020
Category: Hate violence: Physical
Rubeena Bano, a resident of Delhi's Chand Bagh area, was beaten to the point of losing her consciousness by men belonging to Delhi Police, despite her protestations that she was pregnant and was going out to pick up her daughter from school.
She had been forced to go out in the area, where riot conditions persisted, as her daughter had to attend her board exams. She was stopped and ambushed by a group of policemen and an angry mob.
Bano pleaded with the rioters and the policemen to let her go citing her pregnancy, but she said that the men seemed only "further delighted in mauling her".
Bano's attackers left deep welts and scars all over her body. It was several hours after the attack that someone found her lying bleeding and unconscious, and her family was alerted.
Bano also revealed that the policemen were actually preventing locals from accessing government hospitals or ambulances stationed close to the protest sites.
Sources:
Despite imposition of Section 144, BJP leader takes out rally of 100 in violence-hit Delhi
Date: 25 February 2020
Category: Hate violence: Physical and verbal
Despite the imposition of Section 144 and police presence in the area, BJP leader Jai Bhagwan Goyal took out a rally of around 100 people and made inflammatory speeches at Maujpur-Babarpur chowk in Delhi. Violence has been raging in northeast Delhi since 24 February. While Muslims have congregated in areas where they are in a majority, the Hindus, barring politically-sponsored rioters, also remain in the confines of their homes. “Agar yahan rahna hai, toh khada hona hoga (‘If you want to stay here, then you will have to rise up’)” the 60-year-old saffron clad leader declared, even as his voice faded amidst chants of “Jai Shri Ram” and “Har Har Mahadev.” “Chaaron taraf se Muslims se gheere huye hai. Agar apne aap ko bachana hai toh ladna hoga (‘We are surrounded by Muslims from all four sides, if we want to defend ourselves we will have to fight’),” said one of his supporters, even as Goyal kept inciting the Hindu men who had gathered there against Muslims. “Hasn’t Section 144 been imposed here?” a journalist asked a policeman guarding the area in his riot gear. “Yes,” he replied. “Then how could the leader take out a rally here?” the journalist followed up. “Pata nahin (I don’t know),” came the policeman’s pat reply. On Monday, there was stone throwing by both sides near Jaffrabad metro station, where a large group of anti-CAA protestors had gathered. However, things had become muted by Tuesday. In contrast, the area around Maujpur station has been entirely taken over by a frenzied Hindutva mob. One is greeted by a large hoarding of saffron drapes that reads “Jai Shri Ram”. Young men, with sticks, tubelights, or plain PVC pipes, openly flaunted their strength in front of a small battalion of Delhi Police personnel stationed there. The police stood as mute spectators even as an anarchic mob swelled. They looked at journalists with suspicion. Each time anyone attempted to take a video or a picture, they would snatch her or his phone, make them delete all photos, and threaten to beat them up. “Saare ugrawadi hai aas paas. Dande se hi maante hai yeh log (‘We are surrounded by militants. They understand only the language of stick’),” a Hindu man, probably in his late twenties, told The Wire but only after ensuring that this correspondent was a Hindu by birth. At the same time, he refused to engage with one Muslim reporter who stood there. In small intervals, the temperature soared as various mobs spread over different parts of the area burst into slogans of “Jai Shri Ram” – visibly the most-used war cry against Muslims. The use of invectives, particularly those clearly intended to be anti-Muslim, pervaded the air, along with the tear gas that the small troupe of police occasionally fired to disperse the mob. At another corner, there were middle-aged women, clad in saffron, who moved around Babarpur’s streets where Hindus were in a majority, with what appeared to be a clear objective to organise more people from the community against Muslims.“Yaad rakho, ‘Modi Modi’ nahin bolna hai. Sirf ‘Jai Shri Ram’,” one of them said in response to many in the group keenly wanting to take the prime minister’s name during rioting. Beyond Maujpur metro station, one could hear tear gas shells being fired or see long clouds of smoke from a distant corner from a distance. Many shops owned by Muslims in the Jaffrabad area had been set ablaze. The streets were strewn with stones, bricks, and glass. “Following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, it took Herculean efforts by the Hindu and Muslim communities to maintain peace. Seelampur and adjoining areas represented the syncretic culture of India. It is all gone now. Even our Hindu neighbours look at us with suspicion now,” social activist Ovais Sultan Khan told The Wire.
Sources:
https://thewire.in/communalism/delhi-riots-jai-shri-ram-hindutva-bjp
Tyre market in Gokalpuri Market set ablaze, rioters chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’
Date: 25 February 2020
Category: Hate violence: Physical
Gokalpuri tyre market in Delhi, an area predominantly filled with Muslim-owned businesses, located just behind the Gokalpuri metro station, was set on fire. The Wire witnessed cries of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ being shouted in front of the fire by a group of Hindutva supporters at the site. No fatalities were reported.
Right beside Gokalpuri is Kardampuri, where an ongoing anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protest had been disrupted by Hindutva groups. The protest tent at Kardampuri was ragged, with a banner in shreds beside it. Eyewitnesses at the site point to the tears in the tent sheet and say that they have been caused by tear gas being volleyed into the tent, along with what could possibly have been petrol bombs. Several people attested to the tent being set on fire earlier in the day, with the women who have been sitting at the protest site sporting multiple injuries.
Police at the scene said, “It is an electrical fire.” What they were ignoring was that right behind them at that time a group of men had gathered and were screaming ‘Jai Shri Ram’ into the blazing heat. There were no visibly anti-CAA protesters at the site.
Five months after it was nearly razed to the ground by rioters, the renovated Gokulpuri Tyre Market is struggling to get back on its feet. Small, mostly Muslim-owned shops at the market were vandalised, looted and set ablaze episodically for three consecutive days during the riots in February.
Most of the compensation claims filed with the government are yet to be honoured.
Of the total 224 shops in the market, an estimated 97 were either reduced to ashes or partially burnt. The other workshops were vandalised and looted. “What the fire could not consume, the looters did,” said the shopkeepers.
The market has been renamed Jamiat Tyre Market to acknowledge the efforts of humanitarian organisation Jamiat Ulma-i-Hind in rebuilding.
Sources:
https://thewire.in/communalism/gokalpuri-tyre-market-fire-jai-shree-ram
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/trying-to-find-traction/article32255234.ece
Muslims bore brunt of Delhi violence damage, police affidavit shows
Date: 16 July 2020
Category: Hate violence: Physical
A Delhi Police affidavit of the communal violence which shook the capital’s north-east district in February this year has provided for the first time an official break-up by religion of the victims.The data makes it clear that Muslims bore the brunt of what was essentially targeted, organised violence.The list of the dead provided in an annexure to the affidavit submitted to the Delhi high court on July 13 establishes that 77% of the civilians killed – 40 out of 52 – were Muslim while the remaining 23%, or 12, were Hindu. The 53rd victim was a policeman, head constable Ratan Lal, who died of gunshot wounds. Even if he is included in the list of Hindus, Muslims still make up three-quarters of those killed. A separate annexure provides a Hindu-Muslim break-up of houses and shops destroyed. Here, even though its tabulation establishes that Muslims suffered greater losses, the Delhi Police appear to have deliberately undercounted the extent to which they were targeted. For houses damaged, the police give the total number as 185, comprising 14 Hindu houses, 50 Muslim ones and zero ‘unknown’. This suggests that just 27% of the homes damaged or destroyed belonged to Muslims. But when the area-wise breakup is correctly added, the Muslim total rises from 50 to 90, i.e 48.6%. But even this is a gross undercount as the police have withheld the breakup for Khajuri Khas – where the single largest number of houses were destroyed (54) – and Karawal Nagar (23). Both are Hindu majority areas with Muslim pockets within them and it was the residents of those pockets who bore the brunt of the mobs. Assuming many if not most of the 41.6% houses belonging to the ‘unknown’ category are in fact Muslim houses, it could be that 85-90% of the brunt was borne by Muslims. But even here, the police numbers seem an undercount. On March 3, the Eidgah relief camp had around a thousand displaced Muslim men, women and children, mostly the poorest amongst those whose homes were damaged or destroyed. Even at 5 members to a family, that is 200 households. Many others had moved in with relatives or left Delhi. The same pattern of undercounting is evident when it comes to the break-up of damage to shops. Again, the police are not able to add up the Hindu and Muslim columns properly. Going by the neighbourhood-wise breakup, 14% of shops damaged belonged to Hindus and 53.4% to Muslims. But Khajuri Khas and Karawal Nagar have no religion-wise breakup, so “unknown” is 32.4%. Again, assuming the bulk of the ‘unknowns’ are Muslim, given the two localities and contemporary media reports, Muslims appear to have been the target for 80-85% of the attacks on shops and businesses. In a separate list of 473 civilians injured, the police have listed the name and father’s name of each of them. Though religion is not mentioned, going by the names, Hindus account for 216, or 45%, while Muslims account for 257, or 55%. However, Delhi Police makes no note of the evidence of this targeting because it runs counter to the thrust of its affidavit – that the riots were a conspiracy by the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protesters to “execute a secessionist movement in the country by propagating an armed rebellion” in which “the anti-government feeling of Muslims, will be used at an appropriate time to destabilise the government.” While the police, in its affidavit and various chargesheets, always describes the violence by those opposed to the CAA as ‘pre-planned’, it offers no explanation for why the (presumably spontaneous) violence by the “other side” ended up being so much deadlier – as evidenced by its data. Though the data contained in the annexures of the Delhi Police affidavit makes it clear that Muslim lives, homes, shops and places of worship bore the brunt of the violence seen across north-east Delhi in February, it is hard to reconcile that data with the affidavit’s structure and contents – which give no indication whatsoever that there had been any targeting of Muslims. The only individual victims it describes all happen to be Hindu. Most curious of all is the figure of six for “temples damaged” and 13 for mosques, considering that in a reply to an RTI query last month, Delhi Police itself gave the number of mosques/madrasas damaged as 11 and temples as only two. How the figure of two has now grown to six is not clear. The targeted mob attacks on mosques, dargahs and madrasas during the riot had been widely documented in the media. Scroll.in provided details with photographs of 15 such places that had been burnt. On February 25, The Wire‘s reporters were witness to the burning of a mosque in Ashok Nagar and the planting of a Hanuman flag on top of its minaret. In contrast, there have been no reports of any Hindu temple sustaining serious damage. Not even the pro-Hindutva media which devoted a lot of space to describing the violence as the ‘anti-Hindu Delhi riots’ has alleged that temples had been systematically targeted or damaged. One right-wing portal did claim that a Muslim mob had climbed atop a Shiv Mandir in Chand Bagh to throw stones but this was debunked by none other than the priest of the temple. Responding to demands for FIRs against BJP politicians like Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur for inflammatory speeches in the run up to the February violence, police said- “It is submitted that during the investigations conducted so far in all the aforesaid matter related to North-East Delhi riots no actionable evidence has surfaced yet indicating any role being played by [these] persons instigating and/or participating in the riots.”
Sources:
14-year-old Muslim boy shot during Delhi violence, hospitalized six hours later
Date: 28 February 2020
Category: Hate violence: Physical
A 14-year-old Muslim boy suffered bullet injuries in Kardam Puri of Shahdara in northeast Delhi during the violence in northeast Delhi. He was shot at around 11 am, allegedly by Hindutva mobs, and did not receive any medical care other than first aid because ‘ambulances were not allowed’ to the area.
The Wire‘s reporters found him slumped on his stomach, with locals attempting to offer relief with preliminary care. An ambulance eventually did reach the boy at around 5 pm and he was admitted to the GTB hospital. The reporters themselves saw personnel of the security forces standing in a file less than half a kilometre from the place where Faizan lay by the side of the street.
The boy, identified as Faizan, had not been a part of protests or clashes but had been in the area to drop off some items to an acquaintance. His condition stabilized later.
Sources:
https://thewire.in/communalism/north-east-delhi-violence-boy-shot
Those who say “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” will stay in India: Himachal Pradesh CM
Date: 26 February 2020
Category: Hate speech
Those who chant ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ will stay in India, Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jai Ram Thakur said when asked to react to the subject of violence in northeast Delhi. Those who did not do that, those who opposed India, those who disrespected the constitutional system again and again and those who, for purely political reasons, were working with a mindset to prove that things were not alright in the country should be dealt with firmly, he added.
Sources:
Gujarat based anti-Muslim video warns of the return of “those people”, goes viral
Date: November 2020
Category: Hate violence: Digital
Ahead of state assembly elections in Gujarat, a video released in Gujarati language raises the bogey of “those people” (meaning Muslims) returning after 22 years if Modi is not elected back to power. The video opens with the line “Gujarat ma sanjhe saat pachhi avu thai shake che (This can happen after 7 pm in Gujarat)”. In the video, a young daughter of a family is shown as returning home late in the evening, while the azan, or the Muslim call to prayer, reverberate around her in the street. Her parents wait anxiously for her and are only relieved once she reaches home. They then proceed to warn the viewers: “22 years ago, this used to happen and it can happen if those people come,” the father looks directly at the camera as he says. But nobody will come because Modi is here, they then go on to add. The video ends with the words “Apno vote, apni suraksha (Our vote, our safety)” written in saffron. A few days before the release of the video, posters had come up warning voters not to let Paldi- a Hindu and Jain-dominated neighbourhood- turn into Juhapura, which is a Muslim neighbourhood in Ahmedabad as well as the largest Muslim ghetto in India. Observers remarked that Congress, which is trying to shed its “Muslim-appeasing” image, has also not responded suitably to the video despite its overt communal tones. The BJP has always dubbed the Congress a ‘Muslim party’ and evoked ‘Hindu pride’ as part of their election campaigning in Gujarat. In this election campaign, the Congress distanced itself from Muslims and adopted a ‘soft Hindutva’ image to get back into the electoral game. Party vice president Rahul Gandhi was seen visiting multiple temples along his Navsarjan yatra in Gujarat. The number of Muslims MLAs in the Gujarat assembly has been steadily declining. In 1980, there were 12 Muslim MLAs, in 1985 there were eight, two in 1990, one in 1995, five in 2002, three in 2007 and two in 2012. The BJP has not fielded a single Muslim candidate in the state in assembly elections since 1995. The BJP, which had been in power in the state at that point of time for 22 consecutive years, won 99 of 182 seats in the 2017 election.
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVaHR9KCicA
https://www.bloombergquint.com/elections-2017/live-gujarat-election-results-2017
https://thewire.in/communalism/muslim-panic-house-markings-ahmedabad-painful-legacy-2002-violence
https://thewire.in/communalism/gujarat-muslim-voters-congress-bjp-communal-video
Journalist attacked by mob in Delhi, let go after ascertained to be Hindu
Date: 26 February 2020
Category: Hate violence: Physical
A mob of armed rioters attacked freelance journalist Manav Sushil while he attempted to film the mob violence that ensued in Maujpur, among other parts of North East Delhi. He was asked to “prove” that he was Hindu by reciting the Hanuman Chalisa twice. He was also made to strip his lowers. “They identified that I am a Hindu. My life is secure in this country solely because my penis is not circumcised,” said Sushil. According to Sushil, the crowd of 25-30 men, which gathered quickly in what had been a deserted street a short while ago, carried guns, rebars, iron rods and wooden sticks. The crowd wanted to know why he had gone to that area and not to Muslim areas.
Sources:
After Delhi violence, Muslims forego skullcaps, shave beard to not stand out
Date: 28 February 2020
Category: Hate violence: Physical
Fear has forced many Muslim residents of the riot-ravaged parts of the capital to hide the markers of their cultural identity. Several men are shaving off their beards and have been forbidden by their elders to wear skull caps while going out of their homes. Residents of violence-hit neighbourhoods like Jaffrabad saw mobs assault community members after identifying them by their distinctive skullcaps and beards. In videos, mobs are seen heckling and thrashing Muslims, tossing their skullcaps away and pulling their beards, besides mouthing communal slurs. They don’t have any faith in the police and believe they have to take care of their own safety and well-being. The community is feeling threatened as the goons don’t fear the cops. Segregation has started in some pockets — with Hindus and Muslims putting up barricades in their respective neighbourhoods to keep each other out.
Sources:
UP Police forces Muslim residents to sign ‘good behavior’ bonds, penalty runs to lakhs of rupees
Date: 12 March 2020
Category: Hate violence: Legal
At least 2,000 people in Aligarh, 200 in Ferozabad, 100 in Lucknow and 70 in Sambhal were issued notices to sign “good behavior” bonds, with penalties as high as Rs50 lakh, to prevent them from participating in anti-CAA protests. The notices ask the receivers why action should not be taken against them for unleashing violence during the protests. Although some Hindus were made to sign bonds, the majority of those signing are Muslim and poor. The bonds are similar to the ones people with criminal cases must sign when they are released on bail. Many of those signing are largely without criminal records, afraid of the police and the legal process and signing without question because they were relieved at not being arrested. “There are high chances that both accused can breach the peace of the city, so please do the favour of imposing the highest possible bond,” one of the notices, issued by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of Sambhal, reads. Those served notice have to deposit a one-time fee of Rs 300 after signing the bond and appear before an SDM or police commissioner. If they do not, an arrest warrant can be issued. Paying the bond amount or attaching property if they fail to do so is the next step, although lawyers said they knew of only a few cases where the payment was made. Local residents point out that these notices have created a lot of fear in the community and people fear their property may be attached by the government if they do not obey. The notices have been served under Sections 107 and 116 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). These sections allow “executive magistrates” to demand bonds, with or without sureties, from people for “keeping the peace or maintaining good behaviour”. These sections are mostly used as a preventive measure against a person who could pose a threat to the peace of the society. But this can only be done only after receiving information and formal opinion that there are substantial grounds against that person. There is no evidence this process was followed. Despite grounds to do so, many people who signed the bond choose to appear before the SDM instead of taking on the expensive task of challenging the notice in court. Notices have even been sent out in the name of a man dead for the past six years and men in their nineties. Activists point out that sending notice to people without criminal records would be akin to torture. If police had any evidence, they should file FIRs, they said.
Sources:
Islamophobic talk at IISc Bengaluru cancelled after student outrage
Date: 10 March 2020
Category: Propaganda
A scheduled seminar at Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru was cancelled after collective objection from students who found the abstract of the topic to be highly Islamophobic, sexist and unscientific. The talk, scheduled to be presented by KN Ganeshaiah, an agricultural scientist and a retired professor from the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bengaluru, was on the topic "Polygamy, sexual selection and terrorism". Although the abstract sent to the students via email did not name any specific community, the description of “certain communities” left little doubt that the talk was aimed at Muslims. The abstract read: “Theory of sexual selection argues that asymmetry between males and females in their investment in offspring results in the promiscuity of males. This instinctive nature of males to be promiscuous, seems to have been socially (and even religiously) granted and packaged in the form of `polygamy’, at least in certain human societies. Unfortunately, in societies where such polygamy is intense, a large set of males from socially and economically lower strata is deprived of mates creating a huge bank of `bare branches’. Besides sexual selection, female foeticide, driven by social preference for males in certain societies, has also resulted in mate-deprived `bare branches’ . Such men are obviously deprived of an important physiological need which in turn could lead to psychological trauma rendering them to be more vulnerable to take up crime, and indulge in violence and militancy. Therefore, these `mate deprived men’ are likely to become an easy prey for the religious fundamental organizations who would be scouting to recruit ground fighters to attain their narrow religious ends. In other words, the `bare branches’ of certain societies are likely to provide the ground force for terrorism. Therefore I argue that, polygamy and female foeticide could be strong contributors to the ground army required for terrorist activities. I illustrate this with a strong spatial and anthropological association between polygamy, female foeticide and terrorism.” Responding to the mail, students called the subject “intensely communal, sexist, casteist and classist.” Ganeshaiah responded that his talk was based on a similar book written by Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer (although their work is concentrated more on the skewed sex ratios in Asian countries that arise out of extreme gender discrimination and a preference for sons). IISc has been receiving criticism in the recent years for moving closer towards Hindutva propaganda and unscientific attitudes by inviting figures like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to speak and trying to organize workshops on astrology.
Sources:
https://wr.org/publication/surplus-men-deficit-peace-security-and-sex-ratios-asias-largest-states