The systematic and ongoing targeting of Muslims, including three incidents of lynching in the last week and one killing by a policeman in Jharkhand, triggered a wave of protests in the social media. Flooded with hashtags like #StopKillingMuslims, #BlackEid, #StopLynchingMuslims and #EidWithBlackArmBand, the campaign called upon Muslims to wear black bands on their arms on Eid Day to protest against what looks like an unrelenting ‘Lynch in India’ menace.

Heeding the call, the brothers of 15-year-old Hafiz Junaid who was murdered by a lynch mob in the outskirts of Delhi last Friday and others from his village Khandawli in Faridabad, Haryana wore black bands on Eid. So did a large number of Muslims elsewhere.

Also read: On Eid ul Fitr, a Poem for the Late 15-Year-Old Hafiz Junaid.

The Indian Express reports: "As Muslims across Mewat observed a ‘black Eid’ to protest the violence against their community members, 23-year-old Irshad joined them with a black band on his arm. Irshad is the son of cattle farmer Pehlu Khan, who was lynched by a mob of alleged cow protection vigilantes in April. Almost two months after his father succumbed to his injuries, Irshad is disappointed that some of the accused are still free. Eid festivities in this region, populated by Meo Muslims, were dampened by the memory of that incident. “Tyauhar ki itni khushi nahi hai jitna in baaton ka gham hai (The joy of the festival has been dampened by the sorrow caused by these incidents),” said Irshad.

The proposed protest was backed by top officials from the Darul Uloom, Nadva, All India Muslim Majlis Mushawarat; Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Jamiatul Ulema Hind, Jamiatul Ulema and prominent Muslims, including retired judges and civil servants, from across India.

Now, documentary film-maker and activist Anand Patwardhan has called upon all citizens to wear black badges for “at least a week”. “By itself the black ribbon is just a piece of cloth… [but] it is also a way to awaken the sleeping who think everything is fine”, reads Patwardhan’s message on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Khurshid Alam, a lawyer from Kolkota urges Indian Muslims to go beyond “pointless protests”.

We reproduce below his article first published on Two Circles:

Amidst blaring Bollywood numbers doing a surgical strike through my windows, I am trying to pen down my thoughts on the proposed Black Band Protest against mob-lynching of people in general and Muslims in particular. Agreed, protest is vital to democracy but is there any point in protesting just for the sake of it?

Among those who would be protesting with their black bands on Eid, there will be such anti-socials who extort money from people to decorate the streets with stolen electricity and make the lives of their neighbours hell with loud music for all the three days of Eid and there will also be those good Muslims who choose to remain silent on every social issue of the locality but they will be very content with their Black Band Protest because they believe – “Kuch nahi karne se achcha kam se kam patti lagakar protest zahir to kiya!” (protesting with black bands on arms is better than not doing anything at all).

Quran says, “Let there arise out of you a group of people inviting to all that is good , enjoining Al-Ma‘roof and forbidding Al-Munkar (all that is bad). And it is they who are the successful.” Our protests lack spirit because we are selective and if not self-centric then at least community-centric or caste-centric or region-centric or ideology-centric. We do not invite to all that is good and neither forbid all that is bad. A life of a Communist or a Sanghi or a Hindu or a Dalit or any human being is as precious as that of a Muslim. In theory, there is no caste system in Islam but in practice there are places where upper caste Muslims don’t hesitate to ruin the lives of low caste Muslims and they cry foul when non-Muslims mistreat them.

Just because some Pratapgarhi or any visionless leader has appealed to Muslims to sport black bands on Eid Day, emotional fools that we are rush to such gimicks. What about the sanctity of Eid? It is human nature to adopt the easy way out. Sporting black band is one of those easy way out. Enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil is obligatory upon all the Ummah, men and women, each according to his or her circumstances.

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Whoever among you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand [by taking action]; and if he cannot, then with his tongue [by speaking out]; and if he cannot, then with his heart [by feeling that it is wrong] – and that is the weakest of faith.” Why are we satisfied and content with the weakest display of our faith? Let’s not forget that good is the enemy of great. Ghalib has aptly said, “Haq to yeh hai ke haq ada na hua.” (the Truths is that we did not fulfill the rights).

We are in one of the best democracies of the world. Our democracy gives us the options like filing of PILs, complaint to NHRC or SHRCs, representation to the Executives, getting politically conscious of our rights and holding our elected representatives accountable for their breach of duties. Let’s ask ourselves that have we ever tried to change any evil by our actions first or we have limited ourselves to coffee table discussions and black band protests only! In spite of various cases and allegations of corruption in the Judiciary, it is still dispensing justice to the people of India. Why don’t the Muslim organizations include in their long term plans to encourage and support the entry of right minded youth in the Judiciary and Administration of the country? We need much more likes of Zakat Foundation of India.

These pointless protests will not lead us anywhere. The regime which has leased reign of terror will not be moved by our black bands. It has taken them more than 60 years of hardcore preparation to occupy the throne of Delhi and our able leadership should have the vision to prepare such efficient roadmaps to sail us through. In order to follow the teaching of our beloved Prophet to exhibit the highest level of faith, we need to empower ourselves likewise. Black band or No band, Eid Mubarak to all.

Sheikh Khurshid Alam is a Kolkata-based advocate.

This article was first published on Two Circles.

The post Call for all citizens to wear black bands for “at least a week”; Muslims must go beyond “pointless protests”, says lawyer appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
Mohammad Ayub Pandith, the Deputy Superintendent of Police of Jammu and Kashmir, was lynched to death by an irate mob of around 200 Kashmiri Muslims outside the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar yesterday. On the same day, near the National Capital Region, Hafiz Junaid, a 15-year-old Muslim, was stabbed to death and his brothers, Hashim, Shakir Mohsin and Moin, were severely injured on a train from Tughlakabad, Delhi to Ballabhgarh, Haryana. Yesterday was just one of the many days where people have been converted to statistics and India into a slaughterhouse of identities.
 
It is saddening to see that while one act of violence targeted at a State official was highlighted, and rightly so, by media houses; another death of a Muslim teenager on a train by a mob that attacked his religious community received mere scanty attention and concern of the online press on the day of the incident. The media, in effectively privileging one murder over the other, prioritized one life over another as deserving of news space. In so doing, the free media has mirrored the political tide of casual indifference where the lynching of a Muslim boy is not treated with the same degree and extent of condemnation as that of the murder of a police officer. Since when did reportage have to be qualified by the identity of the deceased?
 
It is about time we take stock of the reasons for and nature of the attacks to understand how identities manage anxieties of distance and difference in India. The communally charged atmosphere of Srinagar witnessed rumors of a ‘non-Muslim’ police officer guarding the Jamia Masjid during Shab-e-Qadr, night-long prayers held during Ramzan. The rumors of the deceased non-Muslim DSP being on alleged surveillance duty and clicking photographs of people spread like vengeful and frustrated fire. On the other hand, Junaid’s death was a result of an alleged argument over seats in the passenger train, which eventually led to the attackers spewing communal slurs. One news report carries rumors of alleged beef-eating that instigated the attackers to stab and injure fellow passengers; another attributes the incident to a group of 15-20 people, who boarded the train at Okhla and hurled anti-Muslim comments at the four boys—mocking their dress, calling them beef-eaters, and deeming them undeserving of the train seats.
 
Both incidents scream hate crime and manifested themselves in the form of indefensible violence. The violence in Srinagar took the form of mob lynching as one of the assailants pierced the body of the DSP with a rod and then later dumped it in a drain. The police officer had pulled out his service revolver in self-defense and injured three in their lower limbs, but was overpowered by the strength of the aggravated mob that stripped him naked and beat him to death. Junaid was stabbed by a group of 15-20 men who carried knives on their person on a moving train. The altercation escalated as communal abuses were heaved and stabbings multiplied. The Muslim teenager was declared dead on arrival at the Civil Hospital in Palwal, while Shakir is presently admitted at the AIIMS Trauma Center, Delhi. Self-defense can take various forms, but the theoretical choice to defend oneself may not always materialize into a viable option, and the law discounts exactly that. Armed State agents always carry with them the plausibility and tools of defense that the common man may be deprived of, and this arguably raises questions on the manner in which the law of self-defense operates in our country where everyone may not be equally positioned (and equipped) to defend themselves.

 
Criminal law is a field of public law and any criminal offence is deemed to be a crime against the State and society at large. It is the State’s prerogative to protect the life, liberty and security of citizens, and any offence then is a reinforcement of the failure of the State to do so. In the case of Mohammad Ayub, his rumored religion was just one of the many aspects of his identity that he shouldered as he guarded the Jamia Masjid. As an officer of the State which is perceived as an active perpetrator of violence in Kashmir, Ayub was attacked arguably for more than his ostensible religion. While the wife of the deceased DSP wailed, “Your killers will face the same fate”; Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti termed the act as a “murder of trust” and hinted at how the police force cannot be exercising such restraint for too long. In an environment where the State is no longer perceived as the protector of its citizens evidenced by a history of State-sanctioned violence and brutality; the DSP’s lynching is then arguably a manifestation of an already murdered trust. Delhi (and the rest of India) then poses the daunting prospect of a Kashmir waiting to happen, as Hindu extremists and self-proclaimed cow vigilantes appropriate and/or are delegated the power to take law into their own hands. The trust deficit is further exemplified when repeated calls for help to the Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel, the police and the emergency response number were made all in vain. Surat Pal, the SHO of GRP at Ballabgarh Police Station is reported to have stated:
 
“One of them, Mohsin, called an ambulance when his brother was stabbed. Such things happen. Whenever there is a riot or fight, such things happen and people say some communal things, but we can't do anything”
 
When State instrumentalities normalize communal violence, and when office bearers fail and/or neglect to condemn all acts of violence indiscriminately (and not merely for political or strategic purposes), some lives are effectively valued more than others. In the case of the Jamia Masjid lynching, 12 persons have been identified and five of them have been arrested as per the statement of the Director General of Police S.P. Vaid. Moreover, a Special Investigation Team has been formed to expedite the probe into the lynching of Pandith. The FIR in the case of Junaid’s death has been registered under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention), Indian Penal Code, 1860. According to the Superintendent of the GRP Kamladeep Goyal, one of the assailants has been arrested and has confessed to the commission of the offence. Further, Goyal has also mentioned probing of alleged presence and complicity of one of the officers at Ballabgarsh who did nothing to save Junaid when the train stopped.
 
While the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti as well as the National Conference Working President Omar Abdullah have both strongly condemned the murder of the police officer as an unimaginable travesty and the height of barbarism, scanty political attention has been drawn to condemning the act of violence on the train to Ballabhgarh. In the otherwise selectively silent violence of the ruling government, the strong condemnation of the Ballabgarh incident by Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu is however, welcome.
 
Deputy Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Nirmal Singh is quoted to have said:
 
“I condemn it [the lynching of DSP Pandith] in the strongest words because it's a crime. It's a murder. The government will take it in that way and the police will take a strong action against them.”
 
Both, the lynching of the DSP and the stabbing of a Muslim teenager who had gone Eid shopping, are condemnable crimes. Both are murders and neither of them should attain coverage or be subjected to censure discriminately. The value and sanctity of human life cannot afford politicisation.    
 
Vatsal Gosalia is a student (NLU Mumbai) and Vandita Khanna, a student of the Jindal Global Law School

The post Pandith in Srinagar & Junaid in Ballabhgarh: Comparing a Yesterday of Violence appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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.
 
 
 

The post Cow Vigilantes Strike in Delhi’s Outskirts: Bloody Eid for Young Junaid, Bros Out for Eid Shopping appeared first on SabrangIndia.