Photo Courtesy: India Today
Victims, shocked and injured received no response from the Emergency Police and Helpline numbers and have further alleged that the GRP (railway police force) at Ballabgarh railway station stood by and refused to help
India will soon need to develop it’s own Lynch Calendar. Who is killed When in which City. Identities will probably always be Muslim, sometimes Dalit. But the ideological identities of the killer will escape public knowledge. Deliberately.
Three days before Ramzan Eid, on the last Friday of the Holy Month of Ramzan, a Muslim family was attacked in a local train on the outskirts of Delhi, India’s capital leading to the death of Junaid, a 15 year old student and serious stab injuries to his brother 22 year old Shakir. The third brother Hashim was also injured. The men who led the slogan shouting mob attacked them with large knives.
India Today reports that young Junaid was lynched and 3 others brutally thrashed over rumours of beef eating on Delhi-Ballabhgarh train routeThe four had come to Delhi from their village in Haryana for shopping ahead of Eid.
These young men boarded a local train at Delhi around 5 pm for Ballabhgarh, Haryana. Junaid and his younger brother are students in a Madrassa in Surat and were home on their annual visit during Eid. ‘Some men’ who got on at Tughlaqabad started abusing them using filthy communal language. When they protested they were brutally attacked amidst shouting of communal slogans. Junaid was beaten to death in the train.
Where were the Railway Police?
The four men have been identified as Junaid, Hashim, Shakir Mohsin and Moin of Khandavali village in Ballabgarh. They had boarded a train from Tughlakabad in Delhi. They were later thrown out of the train at Asavati railway station as train left for Mathura. They were taken to Palwal hospital where Junaid was declared brought dead. Shakir and Hashim are still in hospital.
Mohsin in his statement said that all of them had gone to Delhi for Eid shopping. They boarded a passenger train. According to Mohsin's statement, soon after they boarded the train some passengers started abusing them. When they resisted, they were beaten up. A huge crowd attacked them.
Two suspects were carrying knives with them and stabbed the four, Mohsin said in his statement. They called police and emergency response number but to no avail. Mohsin further claimed that they tried to pull the chain to stop the train but failed. He also said GRP personnel at Ballabgarh railway station refused to help them when they told them what happened on the train.
‘The mob’ then tried to pull out Shaikr’s beard. He was stabbed in three places The badly injured victims were not allowed to get off at Ballabhgarh. They were literally thrown off the train. Some people later found them and took them to the hospital.
The CPI-M has issues a strong statement condemning the incident stating that ‘this communally motivated crime shows that the BJP-RSS rule is leading to communal mob actions.’ The statement also says that there’ have been earlier incidents of violence against Muslims on trains but Government has not acted to uphold the law of the land, thus directly encouraging the growth of such communal hate crimes.’
CPI(M) Polit Bureau members Brinda Karat and M.P. Md. Salim and DelhiSecretariat member Asha Sharma met the family in hospital in Delhi this morning. The statement says it all. ‘It is shameful and condemnable that the Government and specifically the Prime Minister and the Home Minister have maintained a deafening silence and not a single officer has been deputed to even visit the family.’
Not only should strict action be taken against the guilty. The CPI-M has demanded adequate compensation for the family. It calls for strong protest actions against such
communally motivated crimes, especially in public spaces.