Mohammad Sajid hails from Uttar Pradesh and has been in Gurgaon for the last three years with his wife Sameena and six children. His nephew, Dilshaad, who was among those beaten up, told the Indian Express that he was playing cricket with his cousins when two men on a bike came to them and said, “What are you doing here? Go to Pakistan and play.”
Gurugram: A group of assailants attacked members of a Muslim family and their guests at their home in Gurgaon’s Dhamaspur village on Thursday, according to a report in the Indian Express.
According to the FIR, the incident took place around 5 pm, at the home of Mohammad Sajid, after some of the accused men allegedly approached the boys from the family, who were playing cricket, and demanded that they “go to Pakistan and play”.
Mohammad Sajid hails from Uttar Pradesh and has been in Gurgaon for the last three years with his wife Sameena and six children. His nephew, Dilshaad, who was among those beaten up, told the Indian Express that he was playing cricket with his cousins when two men on a bike came to them and said, “What are you doing here? Go to Pakistan and play.”
The ACP said when the family continued to play cricket, the assailants were joined by over 40 youths who attacked the family with batons, iron rods, hockey sticks, and water pipes.
In a bid to save themselves, the victims rushed into their house but some of the attackers managed to barge in and beat them. The ones who didn’t enter pelted stones at the house.
The attack was captured on a cellphone by one of the victims. The video clip purportedly showed women family members pleading for mercy while Sajid was being thrashed, he said.
The women and children were sent up to the second-floor terrace, from where, one of the girls, Danishta (21), shot the video of the assault, that has now gone viral on social media, showing the assailants beating up the men and an elderly woman while the girls and boys on the second floor attempted to prevent the terrace door from opening.
A Gurugram police spokesperson, Subhash Boken, however, told the Hindu, that the scuffle broke out between the two groups over a cricket match on the same ground and claimed that there was no communal angle to it.
An FIR in connection with the case has been registered and one person was arrested on Friday night. The police have said that a case has been registered under IPC sections 148 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 307 (attempt to murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees), 452 (house trespass), and 506 (criminal intimidation).
“Some of the accused have been identified. We are conducting raids and expect to make arrests soon,” inspector Surender Kumar, SHO of Bhondsi police station told the Indian Express.
Several opposition leaders Saturday condemned the incident, blaming the government for emboldening anti-social elements.
The Congress lashed out at the BJP government in Haryana after the attack, asking how it happened under the watch of so many ‘chowkidars’.
“Every Patriotic Indian is disgusted by the video of a family in Gurugram being mercilessly beaten by hooligans. The RSS/BJP channelises bigotry and hatred for political power. This incident serves as a warning of the dangerous consequences and the dark side of that strategy,” Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took to Twitter to lash out at the Prime Minister, saying: “Hitler also used to do this for power. Hitler’s goons beat up people, murdered them, and the police would register a case against those who were beaten. Modi ji is also getting this done for power, he is walking down Hitler’s path. Are his supporters not able to see where our country is going?”
In another tweet accompanied by a video of the incident, he said: “Watch this video. Which of our texts endorse the killing of Muslims? The Gita? The Ramayana? The Hanuman Chalisa? These people are not Hindus, they are goons in the garb of Hindus. Their party is an army of rogues, goons. It is the duty of every Indian to save both the country and the Hindu religion from them.”
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said that “what happened to Mohammad Sajid and his family in Gurgaon is beyond imagination”. “Politicians who ruin the brotherhood of the country are not understanding that hate is the kind of poison that will destroy everyone,” he wrote.