Abdul Rasheed from Nuh, a district in northern India’s Haryana state, told Al Jazeera that he was detained in a bus by the police while his shops were razed by a bulldozer during communal clashes in the Muslim-majority locality last week.
Rasheed described his utter devastation by this incident. “The demolition of my shops has significantly impacted my family’s source of income, which was mainly the rent we collected from our tenants – both Hindus and Muslims,” he said. Rasheed also expressed dismay at the authorities’ actions, stating they provided neither prior notice nor any legal directive before destructing the shops.
Violence erupted after a far-right Hindu group, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), also known as the World Hindu Council, and its youth faction, the Bajrang Dal, conducted a procession in the Nuh district of Haryana. This district is located approximately 85km (52 miles) away from India’s capital, New Delhi.
These organizations, which are closely aligned with the ruling BJP, frequently make news due to their aggressive protests targeting India’s religious minority groups, primarily Muslims and Christians.
The Hindu organizations hold the local Muslim population, who constitute approximately 77 percent of the 280,000 residents of Nuh as per the 2011 census, responsible for initiating the conflict. They argue that their procession was attacked with stones and their vehicles were set on fire, which led to violent confrontations between the two religious communities.
Muslims have stated that the catalyst for the recent bouts of violence was a video posted on Facebook by Monu Manesar, a Hindu vigilante notorious for his accusations of killing two Muslim men earlier in the year under the claims of illicit cow meat transportation.
Numerous Hindus, particularly from elite castes, regard cows as sacred creatures. Consequently, the selling and consumption of beef are outlawed in several Indian regions. Since Narendra Modi, a declared Hindu nationalist, assumed the Prime Minister position in 2014, there has been an unsettling increase in lynchings targeted at Muslim butchers and transporters.
In the controversial video, Manesar, who the Haryana police report is currently on the run, seems to incite Hindus to join him in Nuh for the VHP-Bajrang Dal procession. Such provocation has riled the Muslim population in the district.
Oppressive Governance.
The reports of the conflict in Nuh led to an outbreak of anti-Muslim hostility across various regions of Haryana.
In Gurugram, a metropolis on the fringes of New Delhi boasting sleek high-rises that house numerous Fortune 500 companies, a young imam was brutally assaulted and fatally stabbed by an aggressive crowd, leading to the mosque being set on fire.
An additional mosque experienced comparable aggression in Sohna, located approximately 25 kilometers (15 miles) away from Gurugram. The violent unrest last week resulted in six fatalities – among them a Muslim and Sikh police guard and a pair of individuals believed to be from Bajrang Dal.
Despite this, it is reported that the majority of the residential and commercial properties – both permanent and temporary – that were destroyed in the post-violence clean-up largely belonged to the Muslim community.
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