Mob lynching has once again reared its ugly head, suggesting that the demons of anti-Muslim violence under the Modi rule – which has just completed seven years in office – are very much alive. The third week of May has been very unfortunate for the country’s second largest religious community. In such a short span of time, four members of the community were lynched to death and some others survived police brutality and mob violence.
A glance at the following incidents will surely send shivers down to anybody’s spine.
- Asif Khan, a Muslim gym trainer from Mewat in Haryana, was lynched to death after allegedly being forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ by a group of Hindutva militants on 16 May.
- Faisal Husain, a vegetable seller, was allegedly beaten to death by policemen in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district on 21 May.
- Aqeel Qureshi, who was accused of cow slaughter, was allegedly thrown from rooftop in the night by UP Police which resulted in his death a few days later.
- Sarfaraz, a teenager, was beaten to death by a group of men in Delhi’s Swaroop Nagar area in the intervening night of 22 and 23 May.
- Mohammed Subhan, a driver, was allegedly tortured by traffic police personnel at a police station in Shamshabad near the Hyderabad Airport on the outskirts of the city.
- Mohammed Shakir was assaulted by a person, identified as Manoj Thakur, and other cow vigilantes in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad district on 16 May.
- The five members of a family, including a minor girl of the nomadic Bakarwal tribe were attacked by a group of cow vigilantes just after they left their home for the annual summer migration to Kashmir along with their livestock on two trucks in Jammu’s Samba district.
These incidents are not an aberration but a pattern and a calculated plan of cruel Hindutva politics to spread terror among the Muslim community and weaker sections across the country. The Government’s inaction and its policies are emboldening the fanatical Hindutva forces as they have no fear of law.
Attacks on Muslims and Dalits pastoralists by Hindutva fanatics and cow-vigilantes have increased since the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed power in the country. Since 2015, an increasing number of Muslims have been lynched, hanged or brutalised in the cruellest manner on mere suspicion of possessing, cooking or consuming beef.
This pattern of hate crimes committed against Muslims with seeming impunity all started with the brutal killing of 52-year old Mohammed Akhlaq on 28 September 2015 in Bisara village, near Dadri, Uttar Pradesh.
According to an IndiaSpend content analysis of the English media, as many of 97% of these attacks were reported after the BJP came to power in May 2014, and about half the cow-related violence – 32 of 63 cases – were from states governed by the party when the attacks were reported in 2017.
The reign of terror unleashed by these so-called cow “vigilantes” is clearly targeted at browbeating the religious minorities into the status of second class citizens. These killings are not spontaneous but executed with a tacit approval of the ruling party which suits its politics of polarisation. The country has witnessed that BJP leaders have ignored, or worse, even justified the attacks at times.
As former Delhi Minorities Commission chairman, Dr Zafarul Islam Khan puts it, lynchings take place within the context of a certain ideology, politically dominant at present, which seeks to demoralise and sideline the Muslim minority.
The mobs that do lynchings know that the authorities, especially police, are with them. This is why no serious action has been taken against the lynchers these past seven years. In almost all cases, the victims, even if dead, are accused of some crimes like cow slaughter, beef consumption or trading or cow smuggling, so that the crime of the lynchers could be mitigated, Khan told Radiance.
Dr Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas also sees a clear pattern in these hate crimes against Muslims. Dr Ilyas, who heads the Welfare Party of India, told Radiance, “The Hindutva goons want to put Muslims in a state of terror by attacking them regularly who enjoy complete immunity from the authorities.”
They enjoy overt and covert support from the ruling party members and act according to them while the government looks the other way.
It is their modus operandi to first yell at a Muslim youth, who may be a daily wager, cattle farmer, vendor, vegetable or fruit seller. They catch hold of him and beat mercilessly to death, video-graph the entire episode and put it on social media to create panic and terror among Muslims. They think it is rather easier and more effective than triggering a communal riot, Dr Ilyas added.
For example, Mohammed Shakir Qureshi (32), a meat seller in Moradabad district was brutally assaulted on May 23 by Manoj Thakur and his men near a private school in Koad when he was carrying buffalo meat to sell in market. “The men stopped Shakir and started beating him up,” Junaid Alam, his brother-in-law, was reported as saying. “They asked him what meat he was carrying. He told them it was buffalo meat but they accused him that it was beef and demanded Rs.50,000 from him.”
19-year-old boy, Faisal Husain from Bangarmau in Unnao district died in Uttar Pradesh after being beaten up by the police for “violating” the Covid-19 curfew in the state.
According to the fact-finding report of the All India Lawyers Council (AILC), “Faisal was brutally killed in daylight on 21st May, 2021 by the policeman, Constable Vijay Chaudhary in complicity with other policemen in Bangarmau, District Unnao, Uttar Pradesh. He was the only bread-earner of the family, selling vegetables at the pavement of the vegetable market situated nearby his residence. For the last 10 years, father of Faisal, Islam Hussain has been suffering with acute asthma and other diseases so he has been fully incapacitated. The elder brother of Faisal, namely Sufiyan, also suffers from Filariasis and blurred eyesight. The younger brother Ayaan is only 14 years old so the entire financial responsibility of the family was on Faisal who in view of the constraints, had to take the vegetables from the wholesale traders in the morning on credit and after sale pay back in the evening, keeping the earned balance with him to run the family.
“A constable namely Vijay Chaudhary had unleashed a reign of terror by committing brutality on hawkers and pavement sellers to exploit them financially since his posting as constable in Police Station, Bangarmau. On 21st of May, when Vijay Chaudhary came to the market other people, selling vegetables and miscellaneous items fled away but Faisal was caught and brutally beaten thereafter, forcibly taken to police station by Constable Vijay Chaudhary and his colleague on Motorbike. He was beaten to death in a police station in the presence of SI and other policemen. The video of the incident in this regard has been widely circulated.”
Secretary General of AILC advocate Sharfuddin Ahmad, who led the delegation to visit the bereaved family of Faisal, told Radiance, that it’s a clear-cut case of cold-blooded murder of a youth who was the lone bread-earner of the family. It is shocking that UP Police can be so inhuman and beastly, he said.
On May 16, 2021, 27-year-old gym instructor Asif Hussain Khan from Muslim-dominated Mewat region of Haryana was lynched to death by Hindutva goons while he was returning from buying medicines, his family and neighbours said. Asif’s family has alleged that he was made to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and was abused with anti-Muslim invectives.
Speaking with Radiance, Asif’s father Zakir Hussain, said, “On 16 May in the evening my son Asif along with my nephew Rashid (31) had gone to a medical store in Sohna to buy medicines. While they were on their way back they got in touch with Wasif (22), who they also gave a lift back home. This is when the accused, in three to four cars, repeatedly hit my son’s vehicle and eventually surrounded them from all sides.”
All three were beaten up. While Wasif is in critical condition, Rashid was beaten brutally but survived. Rashid, the eyewitness, told the media that the car overturned and they kept beating him and the other two. Explaining what he heard the mob saying, “Unhone bola ki Mulleh, tum logo mein se ek ko bhi nahi chodenge aur ye bhi bola ki tum sab se hum Jai Sri Ram bulayenge. (They said they will not leave any of us alive and also said they will make us chant Jai Sri Ram).”
As usual, the Haryana police denied the claim, saying it was not a hate crime but of an old feud between the two groups.
Meanwhile, the National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations filed a complaint in the State Human Rights Commission of Haryana to investigate the killing of Asif.
One can understand the government’s inaction in this respect, but the silence of rights watch bodies such as National Commission for Human Rights or National Commission for Minorities is puzzling. When Radiance contacted the National Minority panel, its Vice-Chairperson, Atif Rasheed frankly said the Commission did not take suo moto cognizance of recent incidents of hate violence against minority community members. However, Rasheed, who is right now the lone member of the panel, said the commission received a host of complaints through e-mails and it will act accordingly.
Lynching, a broad-daylight killing, often in the presence of the police, of Muslims has not stopped in the country which is a matter of deep concern and needs to be stopped in its tracks.
Lynching will end only when the political and police support the lynchers enjoy will end, avers Khan and adds, “We have prepared a comprehensive study, recording over 500 lynching cases, and same will be published soon.”
While Dr Ilyas suggests some ways to contain this Islamophobic crimes, stating that give a clear-cut message to Hindutva goons that they will not be left spared and there should be no impunity for those responsible for public lynchings and other hate crimes against Muslims.