Fake video viral as Hindus standing united against stone pelting by Muslims
Date: 29 December 2020
Category: Hate speech
Violence erupted in Beghumbagh area of Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh on 27 December in the wake of a rally organizing funds for Ayodhya temple, during which both Hindus and Muslims were accused of throwing stones. A video began to circulate online, claiming that a large crowd of Hindus was standing in unity against stone pelting by Muslims in the area. Many people on social media shared a video of Hindus gathered in front of a mosque. The video is being shared with the caption "Hindus show their unity by standing in front of the mosque against the stone pelting by Jihadi Muslims in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh". However, the online portal The Logical Indian did a reverse search and found that the video was actually from Kalaburgi in Karnataka, and confirmed with local sources that it was an old video of Ram Navami celebrations in the area.
Sources:
https://thelogicalindian.com/fact-check/hindus-in-madhya-pradesh-25738
Hindustan Times closes hate tracker project
Date: 25 October 2017
Category: Hate violence
The Hindustan Times took down its Hate Tracker initiative, a microsite that aimed at being a “national database on crimes in the name of religion, caste and race”. Readers and viewers who tried to access the tracker on the morning of October 25 were greeted with a 404 error message that indicated that its contents were currently no longer available on the newspaper's website. The hate-tracker, which was intended to be a “crowd-sourced database of hate crimes in India since September 2015” was an editorial initiative driven by former Hindustan Times (HT) editor Bobby Ghosh, who joined the publication in May 2016. Ghosh’s departure from HT was announced in September, 2017. The months leading up to his exit saw a personal meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and HT proprietor Shobhana Bhartia and sustained objections raised by top-level government officials to editorial decisions taken during Ghosh’s tenure. Over the month between September and October, HT had slowly started distancing itself from the hate-tracker. HT employees confirmed that while work on the hate tracker still “officially continued”, social media teams had been informally told that it should be publicised less on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Sources:
https://thewire.in/media/hindustan-times-hate-tracker
https://thewire.in/media/hindustan-times-bobby-ghosh-narendra-modi-shobhana-bhartia
Anchor booked for inciting hatred against Muslims
Date: 4 May 2020
Category: Hate speech
The Mumbai police registered an FIR against Arnab Goswami, editor and owner of Republic TV channel on May 3 following a complaint that he tried to create hatred against Muslims in April 2020. Irfan Abubakar Shaikh, secretary of Raza Educational Welfare Society and a resident of Null Bazar in South Mumbai in his complaint to the police alleged that both the channel and Goswami were trying to create hatred against the Muslim community and targeted a mosque in Bandra that had no link to a protest by migrants on April 14. Shaikh highlighted alleged comments by Goswami like ‘Ab se thodi der pehle Mumbai ke Bandra me Jama Masjid Hai.’ Aur Is Jama Masjid Ke Pass Achanak Hazaro logo Ki Bheed Jama Hogae’. (Thousands of people gathered outside Jama Masjid in Bandra) ‘Mumbai ke Bandra me masjid Ke pass kisne bheed jutae. (Who gathered the crowd outside the mosque in Bandra?) ‘Lockdown me har Bheed Masjid ke pass kyu Juti Hai? (Why is it that crowds gather near every mosque during lockdown), which he claimed fuelled hatred against Muslims. Pydhonie police registered a case under various sections of the Indian penal code.
Sources:
Hindutva outfit asks bakery to take down ‘halal’ sign, threatens boycott
Date: 28 December 2020
Category: Hate speech
A branch of Hindu Aikyavedi in Parakkadav, Aluva has handed over a letter to the owner of a bakery named ‘Mody Bakery’ in town asking them to remove the ‘halal’ sign posted on the establishment. Calling a “distinction in food on the basis of religion a form of untouchability and criminal”, the notice demanded that the sign be removed within seven days. Otherwise, the letter continues to warn, the organization would be forced into measures like boycott and demonstrations.The notice is written under the official letterhead of Hindu Aikyavedi. The members of the outfit who approached the bakery apparently spoke in a threatening tone and the employees were subsequently forced to remove the sign. In a post put up on Facebook, Mansoor Kochukadavu, a member of Bhim Army Kerala, said he had talked to the bakery owner about the incident but no complaint was being registered against the outfit for the moment. However, he assured him that the meat products in his store would continue to be halal-based.
Sources:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3991215907589209&id=100001025187685
Rally for Ayodhya fund collection vandalizes mosque, plant RSS flag
Date: 29 December 2020
Category: Hate violence
At Dorana village in Mandsaur, about 20km from the district headquarters, hundreds of members of Right-wing organisations such as the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal carrying saffron flags and raising slogans blocked a narrow lane near a local mosque. Some of them climbed atop the mosque. In one video, a man can be seen planting a saffron flag on the minaret of the mosque. The rally was being taken out to create awareness about fund collection for the Ram temple. According to an inspector in the Nai Abadi police, the group also damaged a few houses belonging to members of the minority community some distance away. However, the officer said nobody was injured because the residents had fled to agriculture fields.While five persons have been arrested, more are being identified from videos of the incident, the official said. They were booked under sections related to rioting, criminal intimidation and obscene acts.
Sources:
https://twitter.com/AjmeriEr/status/1343912000779272193
Right-wing rally turns violent, attacks mosque
Date: 29 December 2020
Category: Hate violence
At Chandankhedi village in Indore, participants of a right-wing rally to raise awareness about fund collection for the Ram Temple allegedly tried to damage a mosque and recited Hanuman Chalisa outside the mosque, leading to stone-pelting. Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Yogesh Deshmukh said four FIRs have been registered in connection with the violence at Chandankhedi. He said 27 people have been rounded up in connection with the stone-pelting and firing, and those who climbed atop the mosque are being identified from videos filmed at the scene. He said the rally had been taken out with permission and participants were accompanied by police.
Sources:
https://twitter.com/cjwerleman/status/1344133207285850112
India Today’s ‘sting’ operation on ‘madrasa hotspots’ makes false allegations
Date: 10 April 2020
Category: Hate speech
An ‘investigation’ carried out by the news channel India Today about ‘madrasa hotspots’ was called out for its biased coverage. On April 10, the show ‘Newstrack’ had telecast a sting operation of three madrasas in Delhi in attempt to make it seem that students were living in cramped conditions in violation of lockdown rules, making madrasas potential Covid-19 hotspots. The channel also claimed that the caretakers had links with the Tablighi Jamat. However, news portal Newslaundry spoke to two of the three caretakers as well as Delhi Police and found out that the allegations were baseless. For one thing, the children staying in the madrasas, most of whom hailed from far away places like Bihar, had no option of leaving for home in the middle of a sudden and nationwide lockdown. In fact, the Union human resource development ministry had itself suggested in March that students who were unable to travel should continue to stay in hostels. These madrasas had also provided the full list of students staying on the premises to the police. Police also confirmed that the caretakers did not have any connection to Tablighi Jamaat nor had they visited its Nizamuddin headquarters. One of the madrasas that featured in the ‘sting’ had already been covered by another channel India TV, which had praised the anti-Covid precautions taken by the madrasa authorities. The madrasas were also keeping their students in separate rooms.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9_iWSvq-9Q&t=41s
Indian man slammed by UAE royal for Islamophobic tweets
Date: 16 April 2020
Category: Hate Speech
Princess Hend Al Qassimi, a member of the royal family of United Arab Emirates, called out a series of “Islamophobic posts” on Twitter by a user named Saurabh Upadhyay. Upadhyay had put out several tweets targeting Muslims over the March congregation of Tablighi Jamaat in New Delhi that led to a spike in the number of Covid-19 cases in India. A Twitter spat had soon ensued between Upadhyay and another user, during which the former allegedly used foul language. Claiming that the Tablighis spat on people, Upadhyay asked, “What’s with peaceful people and spitting? New form of jihad custom made for 2020?” He also allegedly used abusive language against the Tablighis, calling them “radical Islamist terrorists”. Upadhyay later went on a say how Hindus were being targeted in the Middle East and that the region is what it is today “because Indians have built cities like Dubai from scratch”. In one post allegedly by Upadhyay, he had said all Islamic organisations “should be kept on vigilant watch or barred” as they only spread violence and unrest. While Upadhyay seems to have deactivated or deleted his Twitter account, his posts led to a sharp response by Princess Qassimi who shared screenshots of the tweets and said anyone “openly racist and discriminatory in the UAE will be fined and made to leave”. Upadhyay’s profile reportedly described him to be the CEO of Rockwell Events and Sales, a company in Dubai.
Sources:
Three arrested after creating false story about being bitten by maulana
Date: 6 April 2020
Category: Hate Speech
Kankarkheda Police arrested three people for falsely alleging that a maulana had spit on and bitten a shopkeeper in the village. Arun, who runs a grocery shop in Lakhwaya village, allegedly got into an argument with the maulana named Naeemuddin over a measly sum of Rs2. He reportedly hit the maulana, who then complained to the police about the assault. Arun, who reached the police station after maulana, also complained that he had spit on him and bitten him amid the Covid-19 pandemic. However, when police visited Lakhwana to conduct an investigation, Arun admitted that he had falsely accused the cleric. Another man named Tarun had instigated him to hit the maulana, and used a coin to make marks similar to bite marks on his body. Three people- Arun, Tarun and a third person named Manoj- were arrested. According to police, the three were trying to spoil the atmosphere of the village.
Sources:
Facebook refused to remove anti-Muslim posts, says report
Date: 17 August 2020
Category: Hate speech
Facebook refused to comply with its hate-speech policy and allowed anti-Muslim posts on its platform to avoid ruining the social media company’s relationship with the Indian government. A report published in the Wall Street Journal alleges that Facebook’s top public-policy executive in India, Ankhi Das, refused to apply company anti-hate speech rules to BJP politicians and other “Hindu nationalist individuals and groups”. “The company’s top public-policy executive in the country, Ankhi Das, opposed applying the hate-speech rules to [T Raja] Singh and at least three other Hindu nationalist individuals and groups flagged internally for promoting or participating in violence,” the report said, according to current and former Facebook employees. Das, the report said, told staff members that “punishing members of India’s ruling party would damage the company’s business prospect with the country”. Singh, in his Facebook posts, had demanded that Rohingya refugees in India be shot; called Indian Muslims traitors and threatened to demolish mosques. Singh is a BJP MLA in who has several cases against him, mostly related to his controversial comments on Islam and Muslims. The report also mentioned BJP MP Anant Kumar Hegde who used Facebook to allege that Muslims in India are spreading coronavirus in the country as part of a conspiracy called “Corona Jihad”. BJP’s Kapil Mishra was also mentioned in the report. In October, after the report created a huge controversy, Ankhi Das stepped down from her position at Facebook.
Sources:
https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/ankhi-das-quits-facebook/article32955874.ece
Madrasa teachers turned out of Calcutta guest house
Date: 22 September 2020
Category: Discrimination
A group of 10 madrasa teachers from Malda who had booked a guesthouse in Salt Lake to freshen up before heading to a meeting at the state’s education department headquarters were turned out of the guesthouse a few hours after they had checked in and refused accommodation in another. One of the teachers said they got the impression that they were taken from one guesthouse to another and refused rooms because of their identity, their names, their appearance and their clothes. Moidul Islam, general secretary of the teachers’ organization Paschimbanga Sikshak Aikya Mukta Mancha, who had made the bookings, said that the guesthouse employee who had accepted the bookings and received the team in the morning told him some residents had spotted the teachers returning after breakfast and objected to their presence before the lodge authorities. Islam said: “‘They are all from your community,’ that employee said. He also said the situation could have been managed had there been members of any other community too in the group. The guesthouse owner too was unwilling (to keep them), he said, and expressed regret at his inability to help.” The teachers, eight of them headmasters at their madrasas, were forced to take shelter under the East West Metro viaduct (the ground below the overhead tracks) near Bikash Bhavan amid the morning shower and left the city directly after finishing work.
Sources:
Four Tablighi Jamaat members almost beaten to death in Maharashtra
Date: 19 September 2020
Four Tablighi Jamaat members who were travelling from Dharur to Ambajogai for their friend’s funeral were assaulted with bricks and sticks by an unknown group of people on the night of 16 September. Suhail Tamboli, Aslam Ather, Sayyed Layak and Nizamuddin Qazi had stopped on the route when the car they were travelling in developed a glitch in Beed’s Hol village in Maharashtra. Meanwhile, two men on a bike arrived at the spot where their car was parked and for no reason started verbally abusing Aslam and Nizamuddin, who were wearing skull caps and kurtas, and according to them, “used filthy language against our community”. Within a few minutes, the men had made a call and six more men had arrived at the spot, armed with sticks. “They certainly intended to kill us that night,” said the 34-year-old Suhail Tamboli. “They also pulled our beards and threw our caps,” he added. “One of them smashed a brick twice on my head and kept hitting me with a stick till it broke,” said Suhail. “I thought I’m going to die that night.” The men continued to assault them for the next 40 minutes or so. Police arrived at the scene an hour later. The assailants also reportedly said “Tum Hindustan mein rehne ke laayak nahi ho, tum yahan nahi reh sakte.” (you don’t deserve to live in India, you cannot live here). The assailants damaged the car after beating them and left. “We heard them saying ‘they are dead’ to other boys and left,” Aslam said. Two of the six accused were arrested soon.
Sources:
http://twocircles.net/2020sep19/439062.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true
https://thewire.in/communalism/tablighi-jamaat-communal-reporting-ib-ministry-coronavirus
https://sabrangindia.in/article/tablighi-jamaat-members-attacked-beed
Police torture two Muslim men in custody in Kerala
Date: 24 August 2020
Category: Hate violence
Two brothers who were picked up from their house by Palakkad police on allegations of an attempted assault on an RSS worker were allegedly subjected to severe custodial torture. According to their lawyer, despite pleading innocence, the two were taken into custody and tortured. Abdurrahman, 18, had to be hospitalized with serious injuries to his genitals, thighs, chest, and legs, while Bilal, 20, continued to be held in custody for at least a week under charges of IPC Sec. 308 (culpable homicide), 341, 324 and others. “A group of ten police officers started by beating both the youths on their feet. They were tied up and 150-200 lashes were inflicted on them. They stood on his thighs and beat them on the head,” their lawyer Mohammad Rashid said, “then, two police officers sat on their chests while the others used a cigarette lighter to burn their genitals. They even sprayed their private parts with pepper spray.” SI Sudheesh Kumar allegedly said to the men that they “won’t be able to give birth to any more Muslims”. When a video where Abdurrahman recounts his experiences was circulated, a fresh FIR was slapped against him on grounds of spreading fake news and communal disharmony.
Sources:
http://twocircles.net/2020sep09/438954.html
https://sabrangindia.in/article/kerala-muslim-youth-accuse-local-police-custodial-torture
https://www.dalitcamera.com/police-used-pepper-spray-on-our-genitals/
Journalism student detained for sharing anti-RSS Whatsapp status
Date: 19 August 2020
Category: Hate violence
Mohammad Misbah Zafar, first-year journalism student at the Maulana Azad National Urdu University in Hyderabad, was picked up in the early hours of August 15, India’s Independence Day, for sharing a Whatsapp status against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and detained for 12 hours. Zafar had shared a Whatsapp status about a talk scheduled to be held on Independence Day that was arranged by Campus Front of India, the student wing of Popular Front of India. The program, titled ‘Independence Day Message’ was promoted on Twitter with the hashtags #RSSseAzadi and #HindutvaGovtseAzadi. Ten policemen picked up Zafar from his home in Jarwal, Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh. “On the way to the police station, the policemen started using abusive language and asked me, ‘Why are you ungrateful to the Indian government for giving you food and shelter? Do you want to apply Imran Khan’s laws to India? Which organisation is behind you making you do all this?’ I told them I was just criticising the government. And if you think that is anti-national, that’s your problem,” Zafar told The Wire. The police asked Zafar to write an apology note, which he was hesitant to do as he didn’t think he had done anything wrong. “They threatened me saying that they will charge me with sedition and confiscate my father’s property if I don’t write it,” he said. He was allowed to leave the police station only after he was challaned in front of the district magistrate under Section 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows for “Arrest to prevent the commission of cognisable offences”. The station officer of Jarwal Road police station told The Wire, “Who the complainant was is a private matter and cannot be made public. We didn’t file any case against him, we simply called him to the police station and advised him not to do anything that hurts people’s sentiments in the future.”
Sources:
https://thewire.in/rights/up-journalism-student-detained-for-whatsapp-status-criticising-rss
https://twocircles.net/2020aug15/438591.html
Police threaten to kill Muslim in ‘encounter’ ahead of Ram Mandir ceremony
Date: 5 August 2020
Category: Hate violence
More than 30 Muslim men, mostly affiliated with the Popular Front of India, were arrested, detained or visited by the Uttar Pradesh police in the days before and after the Bhoomi Pujan ceremony for the Ram temple in Ayodhya on August 5. At least 17 men were arrested or detained in Bahraich, four each in Barabanki and Sitapur, three in Lucknow, and one in Varanasi. The police also raided the homes of at least 10 alleged PFI members in Shamli and eight in Muzaffarnagar on August 4. Qamaruddin, 34, and Sahibe Alam, 28, Sahibe Alam were taken into custody from Jarwal, where they stayed for two days and were subjected to interrogation by four plainclothes men from the police’s Local Intelligence Unit. Qamaruddin, who does not use a second name, and Sahibe Alam reached the Jarwal Road police station half past noon and waited for about three hours before being called in. “Which organisation do you work for?” the Circle Officer asked. They were associated with the PFI, which, Qamaruddin and Sahibe Alam made sure to clarify, wasn’t a banned group. ‘There is AIMIM. Can’t you work with them?” the officer allegedly retorted. One of them allegedly also told Qamaruddin, “We will kill you in an encounter. Who do you think you are? This is the prime minister’s programme, what are you up to?” He was referring to the Bhoomi Pujan ceremony where Narendra Modi would be centre stage the next day. In a press note issued on August 6, the police said they had arrested three men – Sahibe Alam, Qamaruddin and one Dr Aleem Ahmed – and booked them for spreading communally sensitive messages on Twitter and WhatsApp. Qamaruddin rejected the allegations, pointing out that he owned only a simple Lava keypad phone and not a smartphone. So, there was no question of him running a social media campaign.
Sources:
Come back to the Hindu fold, UP police officer tells Muslim man
Date: 4 August 2020
Category: Hate violence
More than 30 Muslim men, mostly affiliated with the Popular Front of India, were arrested, detained or visited by the Uttar Pradesh police in the days before and after the Bhoomi Pujan ceremony for the Ram temple in Ayodhya on August 5. At least 17 men were arrested or detained in Bahraich, four each in Barabanki and Sitapur, three in Lucknow, and one in Varanasi. The police also raided the homes of at least 10 alleged PFI members in Shamli and eight in Muzaffarnagar on August 4. Mohammad Iqbal, 37, a teacher, runs a high school at Riawali Nagla village. In the late afternoon on August 4, about a dozen policemen arrived at his house. “Are you putting up a poster of the Babri Masjid,” one of them asked Iqbal. He claimed the policemen hurled abuses at him in front of his children and elderly family members. “Dehshat ho jati hai,” he recounted the experience. “We were terrorised.” Iqbal’s was one of eight houses in Muzaffarnagar that were raided by the police the day before the Bhoomi Pujan ceremony. Unlike several other Muslim men who were arrested, detained or raided around that time, Iqbal said he was not even an PFI supporter, let alone a member. “I did not participate in anti-CAA protests either,” he added. At the time of the protests, though, the police had detained Iqbal’s younger brother, Mohammad Shamshad, a B Pharma student, for 24 hours. Iqbal recalled that when he and some of his relatives went to find out why his brother had been detained, the Ratanpuri SHO told them, “Ghar wapsi kar lo.” He asked them to convert to Hinduism, that is. On February 1, the police came again to their home, this time to arrest Iqbal. He was thrown behind bars and not allowed to meet his family, he said. When Iqbal demanded to know why he had been arrested, a Local Intelligence Unit official slapped him and said, “You became Muslims in Aurangzeb’s time. Now, come back to the Hindu fold.” Iqbal was told to sign on a paper without reading it and when he refused, the same official started beating him up with a cane and threatened to sodomise him with a baton. He was then booked under penal provisions related to rioting with a deadly weapon, unlawful assembly, voluntarily causing hurt, disobeying a public servant’s order, attempt to murder, and criminal conspiracy. He obtained bail from a magistrate’s court on February 19 and was released.
Sources:
UP police assault Muslim man on suspicion of cow slaughter
Date: 8 September 2020
Category: Hate violence
In the early hours of 30 August, personnel of the Uttar Pradesh Police brutally assaulted Salim Qureshi, a 55-year-old fruit seller, at his house in Ghazipur district’s Dildarnagar village, according to his family. Qureshi’s wife, Sarvari Begum, said the policemen arrived at the house at around 2 am and hit her husband so much that a part of his heel broke away from the right foot. After this, she said, the police stole Rs 20,000 from him and ran away. While Begum said that the policemen refused to give any reason behind the assault, the Uttar Pradesh police claimed that they visited the house based on an input regarding illegal cow slaughter. On 4 September, in an application to the superintendent of Ghazpiur district, seeking the registration of a first-information report in the incident, she named four police officials of the Dildarnagar police station as the assailants—the sub inspector Sandeep Kumar, and the constables Vineet Kumar, Raju Kumar, Kundan Kumar. Qureshi’s family members are among several Muslim villagers who told The Caravan this year that the Uttar Pradesh Police has assaulted or harassed them. Dr Khalid Anis Ansari, a sociologist at the Glocal University in Saharanpur district, told a reporter of The Caravan, “In my area too, such incidents are happening every day.” Ansari, who has conducted research on Pasmanda Muslims, said that the police were targeting poor Muslims under the guise of curbing cow slaughter in the state.
Sources:
https://twitter.com/Habeebinamdar/status/1303363117255024640
Two Muslim men attacked in Hapur over cow slaughter, one dies
Date: 22 June 2020
Category: Hate violence
A 45-year-old Muslim cattle trader was lynched and a farmer who worked with him was brutually attacked in Hapur in Uttar Pradesh.The lynching of Qasim took place on June 18 at Bajhera Khurd village in Hapur district in broad daylight. Samiuddin, who was working on his farm, tried to intervene and stop the violence but the mob did not spare him either. Videos of the violence went viral on social media. As Qasim was attacked, several minor boys, who formed the mob, kept abusing him for being a Muslim and indulging in cattle slaughter. But the FIR, which was lodged later, and bore the signature of one of Samiuddin’s brothers as the complainant and one of Qasim’s brothers as a witness, made the case as one of road rage. Qasim’s brother Nadeem also alleged that he had Rs50,000 on him at the time of his death, but only Rs14,000 was found on his dead body. Autopsy report shows Qasim sustained 18 grievous injuries— his ribs were fractured, there were deep cuts on his shoulders, knees and head. His body was pierced with screw drivers and skin scraped with sickles. Samiuddin’s brother Mehruddin said that the family learned that Samiuddin was later dragged to a Hindu temple closeby and beaten again. “Exactly like Dadri (where Mohammed Akhlaq was lynched), some people decided at a temple that a cattle smuggler had come to the village and went in a group to attack Qasim who was visiting the village to buy cattle. The way the events unfolded make the lynching appear as a pre-planned attack,” Salim Engineer, secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, who visited Hapur.
Sources:
https://thewire.in/communalism/hapur-lynchings-narratives-of-victims-families-suggest-pre-planning
Muslim cab driver murdered, recorded call shows he was asked to chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’
Date: 7 September 2020
Category: Hate violence
The murdered body of a Muslim cab driver was found tied to the side of his car in Greater Noida on 6 September. His 20-year-old son, who had received a call from his father right before he died, recorded the conversation before his death. His father, Aftab Alam, hadn’t uttered a word after he picked up the phone. Sabir heard “drunk” men on the other end of the phone asking his father if he would like to drink. Alam said ‘no’, Sabir heard.The men then asked him his name, according to Sabir. By then, having sensed that something was wrong, he began recording the call. In the audio file of the call, one of the men can be heard saying, “Jai Shri Ram bol, bol Jai Shri Ram”. Sabir heard no conversation after that. But 11 minutes later, at the 19:41 minute mark, one of the men can be heard saying, “Saans ruk gayi.” ‘He has stopped breathing.’ He immediately went to the nearest police station, Mayur Vihar Phase I, and asked for help. The police found Aftab Alam’s bruised, lifeless body. He was taken to a nearby hospital. “His tongue area was badly bruised, ears were bleeding, there was a big cut on his face. This is clearly a case of mob lynching,” he said. “But the police have only registered a robbery case.” Sabir added, “We are Muslims, but we have a right to live.” However, the Badalpur police station house officer denied that it was a case of “mob lynching” or “hate crime”. The FIR, registered on the same night, charged the anonymous assaulters under sections 394 (voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery) 302 (punishment for murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender). Alam’s father, 65-year-old Mohammad Tahir, said, “Had it been a case of robbery, why wouldn’t they take the car? They would have stolen the car and thrown his body out on the street. This was clearly a case of mob lynching. They only took the mobile phone.”
Sources:
Muslim man lynched on suspicion of theft, attackers pose for selfies
Date: 4 September 2020
Category: Hate violence
A 32-year-old man was allegedly killed by a mob on suspicion of theft on September 3 as they tied him to a tree and rained punches and kicks on him for hours before he collapsed in UP’s Bareilly. Some of the attackers joined the crowd for the sheer ‘fun’ of it and posed for mobile cameras while pouncing on the man. The victim, Basid Khan, later turned out to be a drunkard and not a thief. Basid died a day later in the hospital. He had been caught by a security guard who mistook him for a thief. Soon, a crowd assembled and dragged him to a nearby tree and tied him to it. He was later handed over to police who, instead of getting him to a hospital, let him go. His family noticed his condition and later had him hospitalized. Heavy police was deployed in the area.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz0HvaMBy1Q