Subedar Maulvi Ishrat Ali of Rajputana Rifle is a victim of hate juggernaut. Or should we call it Islamophobia? He had been reportedly issued a notice for disobedience for refusing to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Jai Mata di’ instead of usual ‘Jai Hind’ a few weeks ago. He was ordered to evacuate his quarter in Delhi cantonment immediately. Finding no one to respond to his plea, Ishrat Ali moved the High Court. But, as per a report published in the Urdu daily Rashtriya Sahara, his family was evacuated forcibly on 9 October in his absence; and that too despite his petition pending in the High Court.
His family members called the police by dialling 100 but the military police did not allow the local police to enter the house. Subedar Ishrat Ali’s wife Shehnaz Bano told the Urdu daily, “Today in the afternoon at about 12.30 some 35-40 personnel of military police, including women police officers, entered the house. They pushed and forced me and my daughters out. Then they started throwing out the household possessions much of which has been damaged.
“After this the military police called a tempo and loaded our possessions on it saying, ‘Go wherever you want to go’,” she alleged.
The sad saga of this poor lady is that her husband was in Bikaner, where he was transferred on 16 November 2013, and their son was not at home. “Where will I go with my possessions? I requested them to give me at least one week but they did not budge and got us ejected,” she further said, adding, “No one in the 3 Raj Rif (Rajputana Rifles) Centre helped us. Hungry and thirsty for hours we stood there but no one even offered us a glass of water.”
The Rashtriya Sahara report also includes an input by a retired officer from Rajputana Rifles named Kapil Deo, who said, “I regard Subedar Ishrat Ali as my teacher. This behaviour of army officers with him is absolutely wrong. No one can be forced to act against his religion like this.”
Citing the example of Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, Kapil said, “He had also refused to worship in a temple which is his right. Similarly Maulvi Subedar Ishrat Ali cannot be forced to chant ‘Jai Mata di’. The slogan of ‘Jai Hind’ was coined by Subhash Chandra Bose and to oppose this slogan is akin to insulting Netaji.”
This is nothing short of Islamophobia. And the tragedy is that no mainstream media cared to cover this incident. There is urgent need to arrest this hate mill grinding every aspect of life.