‘Intelligence officials asked why I couldn’t convert to Christianity’, says Dalit rickshaw driver considering conversion to Islam
Date: 3 December 2020
Category: Discrimination
A dalit auto rickshaw driver in Kannur in Kerala, who had earlier announced that she was thinking of converting to Islam to escape the caste discrimination hounding her, says she has even been approached by intelligence officials to explain her reasons for choosing Islam. The officials wanted to know why she was choosing to be a Muslim rather than a Christian, and also enqired where the “seed” of her decision had come from. Chithralekha, who lives in the Payyannur area of Kannur, belongs to the Pulaya community and says she had suffered through intense anti-dalit discrimination in her town. The supporters of the ruling CPIM party did not allow her to run her rickshaw in peace, and her vehicle has even been burnt at one point. After she declared her thoughts about converting to Islam in a Facebook post, Chithralekha has been approached by intelligence officials, right-wing groups and the media. She reports that the latter two groups where trying to portray her decision as being influenced by Muslim organizations like SDPI. Workers associated with RSS, Hindu Aikyavedhi and BJP had told her it was “better to join Al Qaeda or ISIS than to join SDPI,” she said. Ever since her announcement, attempts are being made to link her with terrorism, Chithralekha states. In an interview, Chithralekha also pointed out that last year, she had reported that a Christian priest had tried to convert her on the promise of one acre of land and a free house, but no enquiries had come her way about that.
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/MediaoneTV/videos/206340860960773/
Indian American IT companies accused of anti-Muslim discrimination
Date: 2 December 2020
Category: Discrimination
The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) has accused Indian IT companies with operations in USA and other countries of discriminating against Muslims in their recruitement policies. In a note released by the organization, it quoted the example of a memo put out by the Indian company Nityo Infotech to its recruiter asking them not to “submit Muslim candidates” that had subsequently gone viral. This incident was only “one example of blatant expression of bigotry against Muslims, driven by Hindu nationalist narratives and Islamophobic stereotypes”, IAMC said in a press release. “The fact that the firm felt emboldened to openly ask the recruiter to exclude Muslim candidates shows the extent to which Islamophobia has now been normalized,” says IAMC president Ahsan Khan. It also quoted the example of a Muslim job applicant whose initial application to an IT firm in California had been ignored after he used his first name ‘Muhammed’. However, about a month later, he applied again by using his second name, which did not sound overtly Muslim. He was called and subsequently got the job.
Sources:
Police investigation crawls forward after Muslim girl burnt alive in Bihar
Date: 4 December 2020
Category: Hate violence: Physical
More than a month after a Muslim girl in Bihar’s Vaishali was set on fire by Hindu men for refusing to marry one of them and despite widespread demand for justice, official investigation is moving forward at a snail’s pace. The girl, who is being called by the name Gulnaz, succumbed to her burns on November 15. The girl’s statement was recorded by police on October 30 a few hours after the incident, while she was still in the hospital, but an FIR was only registered on November 2. The first arrest was made on November 17. The woman’s family alleges the police delayed in taking action against the accused, who were identified as Satish Kumar Rai, Chandan, and Vinod Rai. Satish Kumar Rai had been harassing Gulnaz to marry him, the victim’s family said, adding that the woman refused to enter into an interfaith marriage with Rai. Enraged at her refusal, Rai and his friends killed her, the family said. According to reports, one accused has been arrested and police are still looking for the other two. There are also reports that the family of the victim is being harassed by the accused. The chief of the local police station has been suspended for negligence in the case. Even though the case has received little attention in the mainstream media, it later gave rise to the trending Twitter hashtag #JusticeforGulnaz. A signed petition by women activists has demanded greater transparency about the investigation from the police, while also pointing out that agencies like the National Commission for Women and the State Commission for Women as well as the newly-elected Bihar government have been strangely quiet about the matter.
Sources:
https://kafila.online/2020/12/04/statement-condemning-the-murder-of-gulnaz-khatun/
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23justiceforgulnaz&src=typed_query
After election win in Bihar, celebrating BJP workers vandalize mosque
Date: 12 November 2020
Category: Hate violence: Physical
BJP supporters taking out a victory procession in Jamua village, East Champaran on November 11 vandalised a mosque and injured five people who were praying inside. The loudspeaker of the mosque and its two gates were broken. The mosque was pelted with stones during the Maghrib prayers. Jamua has a small Muslim population of about 20-25 families and a large Hindu population of 500 families. Jamua falls in the Dhaka Vidhan Sabha seat, where BJP leader Pawan Kumar Jaiswal emerged victorious in the Bihar assembly election results that were announced on 10 November. Mazhar Alam, caretaker of the mosque, reported that the group was chanting ‘Jai Sri Ram’ all the while. “Wo humko keh rahe the, tum log yahan se chale jao. Tumhara desh nahin hai ye,” he added. “They told us to leave the country. This country is not yours.”
Sources:
Disabled Muslim man drops notes on the ground, accused of trying to spread virus
Date: 27 April 2020
Category: Discrimination
A CCTV footage showing a Muslim man in a petrol pump in Gujarat reaching for his pocket to make a payment and dropping something on the ground has been widely circulated as an attempt to deliberately spread coronavirus. ABP News anchor Vikas Bhadauria tweeted the video saying, “Did he purposely drop the note or it fell by mistake? What could be his intentions?” His tweet drew close to at least 2.5 lakh views and 6,000 retweets. When the man, identified as Mohammed Yusuf Ilyas Shaikh, a resident of Valsad, was later called for questioning by police, they found that his right hand was paralysed after he had met with an accident. His right hand does not function properly which is why the notes fell out of his hand. The police took him for a medical examination and found that he does not have symptoms of Covid-19. A complaint was filed against him for travelling from Valsad to Navsari during the lockdown, although Ilyas explains that he needs to travel to a hospital in Dabhel for regular check-ups on his spine implants every 2-3 months.
Sources:
Zee News anchor booked for discriminatory remarks against Muslims
Date: 8 May 2020
Category: Discrimination
The Kerala Police on 7 November filed a first information report under non-bailable sections against Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary for making incendiary remarks about the Muslim community on his show. “The highlight of the show aired on 11 March was the ‘jihad chart’,” the FIR stated, “The accused presented a programme that is offending the Muslim religion.” In his prime time programme on Wednesday evening, Chaudhary used a diagram to break down the many ways he alleged Muslims are waging “jihad” on Hindus in India. Chaudhary claimed there was “hard” and “soft” jihad. The first category, the anchor alleged, included “population jihad”, “love jihad” and “land jihad”. “Soft jihad” included “economic jihad”, “history jihad” and “media jihad”. Chaudhary then went on to focus on “zameen jihad”, or land jihad, claiming, “Some people are playing the trick of capturing the government’s land to change the population in terms of religion.” He added that “Islamists” are even trying to “change the religion of land, jungles and rivers”. The chart was reportedly lifted from a five-year-old Facebook post, according to a NewsLaundry article. The case was registered under Section 295A of the IPC following a complaint by advocate P Gavas, state secretary of the All India Youth Federation, an organisation affiliated to the Communist Party of India.
Sources:
News channel misreports altercation as Muslims creating trouble over Friday prayers
Date: 3 May 2020
Category: Propaganda
Against the backdrop of spreading coronavirus, news channel News18 Hindi’s debate show ‘Aar Paar’ played a video of an altercation between locals in a Muslim-dominated area in Kurla Pipe Road and Mumbai police claiming that police was manhandled while dispersing a crowd that emerged from a mosque. A tweet reporting the same was later taken down. According to a press release given out by Mumbai Police, the incident occurred on Wednesday, April 29. This debunks the first part of the claim that “Friday prayers” led to the scuffle. The press release says that sub-inspector Kakasaheb Nagwe and his team were patrolling in Kurla Pipe Road when Rizwan Zuber Memon alias Rizwan Tunda began abusing them from the second floor of a building. He asked the cops to not shut down shops in the locality and threatened to get them fired, which attracted a crowd. An FIR was filed against him under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Disaster Management Act and Maharashtra COVID-19 Prevention Measures. Therefore, the second claim that the altercation was between worshippers exiting a mosque and the police is also false. In the original PTI coverage of the incident, which was republished by News18, there is no mention of ‘Friday prayers’ or ‘mosque’. The channel has been criticized for its attempts to portray Muslims as the prime spreads of Covid-19. In March, when a panelist on a channel debate, hosted by Amish Devgan, expressed his opinion that fellow panelist Ashoke Pandit was stretching it by claiming that Muslims were deliberately spreading the virus across the world, the channel switched off his mike. In another segment, when a Muslim panelist told Devgan that he should not introduce a Hindu-Muslim angle to the issue, the anchor feigned rage and asked him to “shut up and sit down”. This panelist was also muted. Earlier in the day, the channel showed snippets of a man claiming that “some Muslim extremists” were flouting the lockdown because of their enmity with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The channel also inexplicably ran a segment on how the Tablighi Jamaat had helped convert Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Yousuf to Islam. In June 15, news anchor Amish Devgan, while hosting a debate on PILs regarding the Place of Worship Special Provision Act on his show 'Aar Par', had called Khwaja Moinuddin Chisthi, better known as Khwaja Ghreeb Nawaz, an "attacker" and "looter". After multiple FIRs were filed against him for his comments, the anchor apologized on air.
Sources:
https://thewire.in/media/tv-anchor-amish-devgan-apologises-sufi-saint-moinuddin-chishti
Picture edited to remove Sikh farmer’s moustache, circulated as Muslim imposter
Date: 4 December 2020
Category: Propaganda
An image of a Sikh man without a moustache was shared on social media with the claim that a Muslim man was posing as Sikh in the ongoing farmers’ protest. Twitter user Manjeet Bagg wrote, “Where did the moustache of this Sardar ji disappear?” This tweet gained over 3,000 retweets before it was deleted. The screenshot was actually grabbed from a Facebook Live put out by the page Hindustan Live Farhan Yahya. The man in question first appears about three minutes into the video and actually can be seen sporting a grey moustache. However, the image that was circulated later shows him without one, clearly pointing to fabrication, with the underlying suggestion that it was a Muslim pretending to be Sikh. Interestingly, the video covers the presence of Muslim leaders at the protest site who had come to show their support for the farmers protesting Centre’s new farm bills.
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/452714475159334/videos/208690440724727/