Three men from Kandivali in Mumbai, who were driving to a funeral in Surat, were lynched by a group of villagers in Gadhchinchle, in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, on Thursday night. The mob, which allegedly suspected the three men to be thieves, also attacked police that reached the spot, reported The Indian Express.

Palghar District Collector Kailas Shinde said, “As per preliminary information, one Sushil Giri Maharaj, who stays in an ashram in Kandivali, and two others, Jayesh and Naresh Yelgade, were travelling in a van which they had rented to travel to Surat to attend a funeral.”

However, in another report by the Mumbai Mirror, API Anandrao Kale told that publication that the men were travelling from Nashik. He said, “The men were travelling from an Eco van to Nashik. The vehicle was on the Dabhadi-Khanvel Road when a mob of around 200 tribals stopped them.”

They were stopped by a sentry of the forest department near Gadhchinchle village after they had already covered a distance of 120 km. The villagers, mostly tribals, over the past few days, had formed vigilante groups over rumours that organ-harvesting gangs, child lifters and thieves were operating in the areas.

It was reported that around 10 pm on Wednesday night, while the three men in the car were having a conversation with the two forest guards, a few men, said to be part of the vigilante group, walked up to the car and got into an argument. The argument then intensified and the mob beat up the three, post which the forest guards called the Kasa police station.

Though a team of four policemen reached the spot, the mob had already overturned the car in which the three were travelling and even threatened the policemen. The mob also pelted stones, logs and axes at the overturned car and a video captured by bystanders showed men cowering in the vehicle.

Another police team of 12 also reached the site and got the men out of the car and put them in two separate vehicles, said Shinde. “However, the mob of around 400 people attacked our vehicles. Some of our policemen were injured as well,” he added.

However, the police’s allegedly passive role in the matter is being questioned after it was reported that the mob managed to get the three men out of the police vehicles and lynch them. The overpowered police party then called for backup, after which a larger police force managed to disperse the crowd and recovered the three bodies.

The police personnel were not seriously injured in the incident, it was said. Reacting to this allegation, Shinde said that he would investigate the decisions taken by the officers and their role during the incident.  

Palghar District Superintendent of Police Gaurav Singh said that 110 villagers from Gadchinchle had been booked under charges of murder and attempt to murder, unlawful assembly and disobedience to order promulgated by a public servant.

Earlier too, a doctor who was conducting a medical camp in Saarni village in Kasa was also attacked by the tribals from a village in Palghar, after he was mistaken for a thief.

The postmortem of the three men is being conducted at Talasari at the Kasa Hospital and the police is also trying to investigate how the men reached there all the way from Kandivali despite the lockdown.

Related:

After news channel announces death of Delhi RWA President, he tweets saying he’s alive
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Alimuddin Ansari, ((please hyperlink:  https://cjp.org.in/victims-of-gautankwad-alimuddin-ansari/ )) a 45 year old coal trader, was killed by a mob of hundred on June 29, 2017 in Jharkhand, on the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally broke his silence on lynching in the name of cow protection. Ansari was targeted for allegedly carrying beef in his van. He was ambushed by the mob, who beat him repeatedly with sticks and pieces of meat, and set his car ablaze. Some members of the mob had been keeping tabs on him since early morning when he allegedly purchased the meat. They also constantly gave their accomplices updates about Ansari’s location in real time and even followed him for 15 kilometers. Ansari reportedly did not fight back at all.

Although the prosecution in the case reportedly called for the convicts to be awarded the maximum punishment,  Mariam Ansari, Alimuddin’s widow, ((please hyperlink: https://cjp.org.in/want-justice-not-revenge-mariam-ansari/ )) categorically stated that she did not believe in retribution and did not want the convicts to be given the death penalty. The court has ordered the District Legal Services Authority guarantee that the victim’s family is adequately compensated. Ansari’s family reportedly said they are satisfied with the verdict and are only seeking compensation because Ansari was the family’s sole bread winner.  

Read more:
https://cjp.org.in/victims-of-gautankwad-alimuddin-ansari/
https://cjp.org.in/local-bjp-leader-among-11-convicted-in-alimuddin-ansari-lynching-case-in-jharkand/
https://cjp.org.in/want-justice-not-revenge-mariam-ansari/
 

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Representational Image of cow vigilantes in action. Photo credit: BBC

 
Two Muslim youth suspected of being cow thieves were lynched by cow goons in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district on Sunday.

The incident took place in Dadon village about 15 kms from Dhupguri town. The bodies have been sent for post-mortem and an investigation has been lunched, a senior police officer from Jalpaiguri told the Indian Express.

The police said the victims were travelling through the village late night in a pick-up van with seven cows. The driver lost his way, drove the van round and round, waking up the villagers in the process. While the driver managed to run away the two victims – Hafizul Shaikh of Dhubri in Assam and Anwar Hussain of Patlahawa in Coochbehar —  were surrounded and lynched by the mob.

According to a Times of India report, over the past few weeks there have been allegations of cattle-lifting in the area and the villagers had set up a cow vigilante group.

In June this year, three Muslim youths were lynched by villagers at Durgapur under Chopra police station in North Dinajpur, also on suspicion of cattle theft.

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15-year-old Junaid Khan, a bright student at a madrasa in Nuh, Haryana had returned home (Khandawali, Haryana) for the holy month of Ramzan. On the same day, June 22, he was stabbed to death on a local train enroute to Asaoti, Haryana. Junaid was returning home with his two brothers after Eid shopping at Jama Masjid, Delhi. All three were visibly Muslim, with Junaid wearing a skull cap. After crowds got on at Okhla, Junaid reportedly offered his seat to an old man. A group of approximately 15 men proceeded to harass the other two brothers for their seats. Upon their refusal to cede seats, the group slapped and beat the three brothers, pulled the beards of the older brothers, threw their skull caps, and hurled abuses at their faith, derogatorily calling them circumcised, Pakistanis and beef-eaters.

As the train reached Ballabhgarh station, where the brothers were to disembark, and where they had, in distress, summoned their siblings from the village for help, the frenzied group pulled those who had come to rescue Junaid and his brothers into the train as well. Then, between Ballabhgarh and Asaoti, the brothers were stabbed and thrown out, on to the Asaoti station platform. Despite the Asaoti station being extremely crowded at the time of the incident, nobody came to the assistance of the bleeding brothers. Junaid succumbed to his injuries, while his oldest brother is still hospitalised. Everybody present at the station, including tea stall owners et al, have pleaded ‘no knowledge’ of the crime, saying they saw neither the incident nor recognise the perpetrators.
Junaid’s murder is not the first – his brute lynching is one in a series of lynchings of Indian Muslims across Northern India, particularly in BJP ruled states.

The Media Reaction
The media has broadly taken two approaches in reporting these two incidents. Large partsof the media have used Ayub’s lynching to reinforce the narrative that depicts Kashmiris as a society riden with violent, intolerant Muslims by attributing the lynching to a rumour that Ayub was a non-Muslim. The incident has also been used to whip up a false sense of victimisation among Hindus. For instance, India Today television put out a segment protesting the “selective outrage” around Junaid’s death, arguing that the “secular” people leading this outrage should also protest Ayub’s death.

Liberal  pundits like respected scholar Pratap Bhanu Mehta have spoken about the core “commonality [between] those who lynch in the name of cows and those lynching in the name of azadi in Kashmir”.This approach, while a significant improvement on the approach using the Nowhatta incident to paint Kashmiris as intrinsically violent and murderous, too has its limitation. I argue that drawing an equivalence between the lynchings of Ayub and Junaid ignores the vastly different structural contexts in which these incidents occurred. While both are condemnable, failing to understand their differences would be a mistake.

State Reaction
The first difference is the reaction of the Indian State to the lynchings. CCTV footage from a community centre outside the Asaoti railway station shows three men fleeing on a motorcycle soon after the fateful train halted at the station. Despite the footage, the police have not identified the person(s) who stabbed Junaid. The DSP of Haryana Railway Police cited the “dull and unclear” nature of footage as a stumbling block. The National Commission of Minorities (NCM), in the context of Junaid’s lynching has “expressed satisfaction on the action taken by the district authorities and police to nab the culprits and handle the situation peacefully”.

While the Indian State has patted itself on the back for dragging its feet concerning Junaid’s murder, in Kashmir, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) had been formed by June 24, to investigate the lynching, and five people had been arrested. The DG of J&K Police, Shesh Paul Vaid stated, “We have identified 12 persons in connection with the case and five of them have been arrested”. The BJP President for J&K has emphatically demanded “setting up of fast-track special court to punish the culprits involved in the heinous crime against humanity and murder of the DSP”. So, while there is de facto State sponsored impunity for one crime, the perpetrators of the other are being held accountable.

Reaction of the Political Elite
The reaction of the Indian political elite to Junaid’s lynching has ranged from lukewarm condemnation to defensiveness invoking “Indian tolerance”. Following the “Not in my Name” protests across several cities, in India, Pakistan, USA, Canada and England against systematic lynching of Indian Muslims, PM Modi invoked Gandhi’s non-violent doctrine stating that, “killing people in the name of Gau Bhakti is not acceptable”.Echoing Modi’s thoughts, BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav said that while, “Cow protection is sacred…there is nothing sacred in lynching or taking life in the name of cow protection”. BJP President Amit Shah in a bid to deflect blame from the NDA regime, said “there have been more lynchings in 2011, 2012 and 2013 [during the UPA-IIregime]”.

Following the lynching of another Muslim man in Jharkhand, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu said, “Let us not give it [lynchings of Muslims] a religious colour”. Similarly, Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi emphasised, “Tolerance is in the DNA of our country and its culture…such incidents [being reported as cases of lynching] are purely criminal ones. If you paint the criminal incidents with communal colour, it is akin to helping criminals”. He went on to say, “I do not think there is fear or insecurity among minorities”. Sanitising the lynchings of Indian Muslims by Hindu (often upper-caste) mobs of their clear religious motivations unleashes a structural violence upon Indian Muslims by invisiblising their experience of marginalisation and existential fear.

In stark contrast, the Kashmiri political leadership has unequivocally condemned Ayub’s lynching.Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and prominent Kashmiri leader and cleric, stated that he was “Deeply disturbed and condemned the brutal act at Nowhatta [the lynching]”. He went on to appeal to Kashmiris that “We [Kashmiris] can’t allow state [Indian State] brutality to snatch our humanity and values”. A delegation of the Hurriyat Conference and Awami Action Committee also visited Ayub’s family to extend their compassion. The BJP sending a delegation to Junaid’s family to share in the family’s grief and outrage is as unimaginable as it is unlikely. J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti also condemned the “sad and unfortunate incident”, saying the perpetrators “will have to face the law”. However, one must remember that institutional politicians like CM Mufti are seen by large sections of Kashmiris as collaborators of the oppressiveIndian State, and hence do not enjoy popular legitimacy.

Contexts of Indian State Behaviour and Majoritarian Hindu Assertion
The most important difference between the lynchings of Junaid and Ayub lies in the structural contexts in which the lynchings occurred. Junaid’s lynching is part of a long trajectory of public killings of Indian Muslims by Hindu (often upper-caste) mobs for failing to be assimilated and existing in the public space on the terms of the majoritarian Hindu since the ruling BJP government assumed office in 2014.

Junaid’s crime was being visibly Muslim on a public train. His mother Saira Begum summed it up, “My son Junaid was too young to understand that he should not have worn a skull cap”. In India, wearing a skull cap and embracing your “Muslimness” in the public space amounts to being a “Bad Muslim”. The choice being posed to Indian Muslims by the assertive Hindu is simple: either exist on our terms or else. The lynchings are the method of communicating this binary to all Indian Muslims, and warning them of the consequences of non-compliance. Impunity for the perpetrators of these lynchings shows that the State actively endorses this project of violent assimilation.

On the other hand, the motivations for Ayub’s lynching are clearly more complicated than an alleged rumour that he was a non-Muslim. He took videos of stone-pelters, thereby compromising their anonymity and safety, fired his gun inside the mosque injuring three people and was a police officer. Police officers in Kashmir are often seen as traitors for facilitating the occupation of their own people. Of course, none of these factors justify the gruesome crime committed against him. However, they are important to understand the causes of the lynching.

We must remember the systematic violence of torture, rapes and enforced disappearances that the Indian State has unleashed upon the Kashmiri people since 1947, with a sharp increase in this violence in the last 28 years of Kashmiri Tehreek (struggle). Through this violence, the State has brutalised and dehumanised Kashmiris, creating a burning rage among them against agents of the State. The day before Ayub’s lynching, the military had charred the body of 3 LeT militants, thus denying Kashmiris the chance to mourn and bury their Shaheed, a process sacrosanct to Kashmiri subjectivity. As a result, emotions were running high among Kashmiris. Lastly, we must remember that in the Kashmiri context, Ayub’s lynching is an aberration. No such incident of mob violence has occurred earlier.

Hence, for liberals to assimilate Ayub’s lynching into the context of lynchings of Indian Muslims by assertive Hindu mobs is to superimpose India’s communal problems onto Kashmir (which is not to say that Kashmir does not have communal problems at all). Ayub’s lynching is deeply inhumane and abhorrent. However, the causes and effects of the DySP’s lynching cannot be understood abstracted from the context of India’s brutal treatment of Kashmir. It is this colonial backdrop in Kashmir, as opposed to a violent majoritarian context in India, which results in the vast differences in both the reasons for and consequences of Junaid’s and Ayub’s lynchings.
 
(The writer is student of Jindal Global Law School)
 

The post No, the Mob Lynchings of Ayub in Kashmir & Junaid in Haryana are Not the Same: Some Posers appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Shahane, known for her liberal views, said that she did not care what religion did the 16-year-old Junaid belong to nor was she bothered about the religious background of the Harayana boy’s murderers.

She wrote, “I don’t care what religion those lynchers belonged to. Nor do I care what religion Junaid belonged to. I only care about one thing. A group of mean, cruel human beings killed a teenager and assaulted three other young men brutally!”

Sharing her personal fear, Shahane said that her heart ‘breaks for Junaid’s mother because her own elder son will turn 16 next year.

“My elder son will turn 16 next year. My heart breaks for Junaid’s mother. Not only did a group of cruel human beings kill Junaid, another group of cruel human beings egged them on. Junaid was also killed by those cruel people who witnessed the insanity & chose to remain silent,” Her Facebook post said.

Read her full Facebook post below;

NOT IN MY NAME

Junaid was lynched by a mob of cruel human beings. I don’t care what religion those lynchers belonged to. Nor do I care what religion Junaid belonged to. I only care about one thing. A group of mean, cruel human beings killed a teenager and assaulted three other young men brutally!
Junaid was 16.
My elder son will turn 16 next year.
My heart breaks for Junaid’s mother.
Not only did a group of cruel human beings kill Junaid, another group of cruel human beings egged them on. Junaid was also killed by those cruel people who witnessed the insanity & chose to remain silent.
There are some cruel people who justify this lynching.
Yes! Hate allows for all sorts of justification.
There has been a long list of these lynchings. It has become so common that no one talks about it. Nobody asks questions about what happened to the perpetrators. Whether they were caught & given the strictest punishment or whether they were released to unleash more violence!
I cannot fathom how anyone can kill unarmed, innocent human beings!
I cannot fathom how people can justify this horrific violence!
Instead of taking law into their own hands why are police complaints not made?
Is it because the lynch mob knows that there is no reason behind what they have done?
All they want to do is to kill in the name of hate.
Whichever religion, ideology, language, ethnicity you belong to, lynching done in any name cannot be condoned!
We’ve suffered so many riots, terrorist attacks, pogroms, lynchings but we haven’t learnt anything.
The bottom line is that innocent human beings become the target of that hate. They are usually poor. They are usually those who are incapable of fighting back. It is really too, too disheartening.
Innocence dies when hate rules!
I cannot be a part of those who encourage hate.
I was with the Ekta Manch marching from Parel to Azad Maidan singing ” Hum hongey kaamyaab….” to promote brotherhood between fellow citizens of all faiths in 1993 after the horrendous riots followed by the heinous bomb blasts in Mumbai.
I marched to the Gateway of India to protest the utter failure & crass mishandling of 26/11 by the then Congress Govt in the State and the Centre in 2008.
I supported the Anna Hazare anti corruption movement when he waged the civil battle against the UPA 2 Govt at the Centre.
I was vocal about women’s safety after the horrendous rape & murder of Jyoti Singh as well as Pallavi Purkayastha as well as the sickening hacking of Swathi.
Today I stand firmly against the lynch mentality that has an active political patronage in our country.
I do not belong to any political party. I am a citizen of one of the finest democracies in the World. That is why it is so important for all of us to respect & protect the tenets of our Constitution.
I, as a proud citizen of India, do not conform to the views of anyone who actively or passively supports this lynching.
My allegiance lies with the Constitution of India.
If the Govt or any other body does anything to undermine the basic tenets of democracy in our country, I will vocally oppose it.
I so wanted to be a part of the peaceful civil protest at Carter Road today but I can’t. But I will not be a part of this hate!
I do not want my children to inherit this hate.
I will not have the blood of innocents on my hands.

NOT IN MY NAME!

Courtesy: Facebook Post
 

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"This is Hindutva's version of the Nazi 'final solution' for the Jews, but a cleverer version."
The Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha were twin souls. Both wanted a divided India. Jinnah achieved his desire in 1947. The followers of Golwalkar and Savarkar are now busy fulfilling theirs. The massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 gave the green light for Muslim-killing across the nation. The message was: it is all right to kill Muslims, better still to lynch them. Lynch mobs armed with knives now rule highways, stop trucks, board trains, break into houses. This is Hindutva's version of the Nazi "final solution" for the Jews, but a cleverer version. Liquidating a community en masse is not a good idea. It attracts worldwide condemnation. So do it in stages, here and there, individual murders that will soon be forgotten. Hindutva has converted this country into a hell where Indians are no longer safe from other Indians. An ideology that has not seen fit to check the blood thirst of its followers has lost the right to call itself Hindu.

This horror is compounded by blatant hypocrisy. Loud proclamations about wiping out Islamic terror are made at home and abroad, but Hindutva terror flourishes. Terror is inhuman in any circumstance, no matter who commits it, and this applies to the brutal lynching of Ayub Pandit, a policeman on duty, by fellow Kashmiris. Kashmir, so long a civilised example to the rest of India, should mourn this tragedy and reject violence as a solution to problems.

 

MSC Satya Sai, From the SAHMAT exhibition on The Making of India, 2004, Image courtesy SAHMAT.

Adil Jussawalla

"Whether the killers are two or three individuals or part of a mob, their rage can't erupt without being fed by a manufactured fear of 'the other'."
‘Who are those "kuch log" who have chosen to spread fear and hatred among communities?' asks Rajdeep Sardesai in an article. Who indeed are they who brutally killed defenceless Junaid? Whether the killers are two or three individuals or part of a mob, their rage can't erupt without being fed by a manufactured fear of 'the other'. It's a cowardly fear that's spreading across the nation, and our hope, perhaps our only hope, is to fight it, not succumb to it.
 

Keki Daruwalla

“…the names of Akhlaque Ahmed and Junaid will go down in history as black marks against the current establishment.”
As a former Law officer, I can say confidently say that lynching signals a complete breakdown of both law and order. One of the state's main functions is to uphold law and maintain order. Regrettably right wing politicos, both within the government and without, have let us down. The lynch gangs think they have the government behind them, and the implicit sanction of the lumpen elements of the majority community at large. The right wing does not realise that the names of Akhlaque Ahmed and Junaid will go down in history as black marks against the current establishment.

 
Jerry Pinto

“Vigilantism can only result in the brutalisation of our public sphere…”
We all have the right to walk the streets and expect the law to protect us. We all have the right to expect that we will reach home safe and sound and if we are suspected of wrongdoing, we have the right to be taken to the police station. Vigilantism can only result in the brutalisation of our public sphere; and of us all, those who wield its terrible weapon included.
 

Chaman Lal

“It is a continuation of the violent Hindutva project…”
The latest incident of lynching of a 16-year-old old student, Junaid, by a Hindutva-charged mob is deeply disturbing. It is a continuation of the violent Hindutva project despite the resistance of civil society. Our writers / cultural activists’ protest by award wapsi has been ridiculed rather than appreciated as the best possible protest in a democracy. We need to appeal to the  community of writers around the world as was done during the Franco regime in Spain in 1937. People, including writers, must come forward and join mass protests everywhere in the world to pressurise the fascist regime of India to take action against such mobs, and desist from patronising and defending them in the name of the Cow!
 

Danish Husain

“This is a battle… for appropriating everything this country stands for…” 
This is a battle for resources, for appropriating everything this country stands for; and the RSS-BJP is doing it in the ugliest way — by dividing this country, and excluding any and everyone who do not believe in their regressive, bigotry-laden ideas.
 

Ganesh Devy

“…shocking, brutal, most unfortunate for a civilized nation.”
 

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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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.

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Indolent Indian cows sitting or eating on the busiest roads of the country’s cities are common sights for anyone who has ever visited the subcontinent.

Today, this mammal is at the centre of the country’s increasingly violent social upheaval. In the name of defending Hindu values, vigilante mobs are lynching and killing people suspected of eating or trading cows, and the country’s openly hindutva, or “Hindu-first”, government has done little to stop them.

In fact, on April 25, the right-wing ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), proposed a measure to identify cows using an electronic ID system similar to the one deployed in 2012 to identify all Indian citizens. Welcome to Indian “meat politics”.
 

Holy cow

Cows are considered sacred in certain interpretations of Hindu philosophy. But some academics, such as the retired Delhi University historian Dwijendra Narayan Jha, have debunked the myth of the absolutely “holy cow”.

That did not prevent a mob from murdering a 55-year-old Rajasthan dairy farmer, Pehlu Khan. In the April 6 incident captured on video and widely viewed on social media, vigilantes brutally thrashed him and the other Muslims traders, ostensibly for transporting cattle.

The Hindu trailer driver, however, was allowed to leave safely, casting doubt on the real aim of this cow vigilantism.

Rajasthan’s home minister, Gulab Chand Kataria, defended the act, saying that “the cow protectors [did] a good job by protecting cows from smuggling”. He refused to label Khan’s death a murder, blaming “both sides” for the violence.

Police reports are in fact often filed against the victims of such attacks, charging them with killing or possessing cows.

And, in March, a vigilante mob set fire to three meat shops in Hathras, a district in western Uttar Pradesh.

The rise of the yogi

Such attacks on religious minorities have increased across India since Narendra Modi was elected prime minister in 2014, backed by the Hindu nationalist BJP.

And it has happened even though he assured Indian citizens that minorities would be protected, and people who voted for him believed him.

Today, the country’s Muslim population are uneasy.

According to the last census, from 2011, 14% of Indians are Muslim, and nearly 80% report being Hindu. Other minority religions include Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism.

In March, the electoral victory of Yogi Adityanath as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, a heavily Muslim state in the north, sent a strong signal to India’s minorities and defenders of the country’s constitutionally enshrined secularism.
 

Adityanath is a firebrand Hindu priest who has obliged his own ministers to meet for hours, almost without sleeping, and to follow strict ascetic and monastic rules. He once said that people opposing Surya Namaskar (a yoga pose) “should drown themselves in the sea”.

His extremist movement, Hindu Yuvu Vahini (Hindu Youth Organisation), has long been controversial. In 2005, it was accused of instigating communal tensions; and it’s dubbed the Aligarh Muslim University “a nursery of terrorism”.

Adityanath is also known for his strident anti-minority rhetoric. In 2015, he compared the world famous Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan to Pakistani terrorist leader Hafiz Saeed. And last year he claimed that Mother Teresa was part of a conspiracy to “christianise” India.

In January, Adityanath suggested that Donald Trump’s proposed immigration ban on Muslims entering the United States should be replicated in India.

Nonetheless, he was elected chief minister in March 2017.

Killing the cow trade… and its traders

Soon after, Adityanath summarily shuttered many of the state’s illegal slaughterhouses, the majority of which are Muslim-run.

India is one of the largest exporters of beef and veal (mainly from water buffalo) in the world, and Uttar Pradesh is the biggest producer in the country.
 

Since the state government’s crackdown, the industry has been facing a critical situation nationwide as many other BJP-ruled states follow Uttar Pradesh’s lead.
In March, Gujarat passed legislation increasing the punishment for cow slaughter from seven years in prison to to a life sentence. It is the country’s harshest cow-protection law (though if the chief minister of Chhattisgarh state, in central India, had his way, anyone caught killing cows there, he says, would be hanged).

India’s leather industry, a significant producer that feeds off the meat industry, is also feeling the crunch.

Minorities in the crosshairs

The cow trade in India mainly benefits Muslims, as they are the dominant traders and consumers of beef (Islam does not prohibit its consumption), so the surge in cow protectionism has disproportionately impacted them.

But Christians also routinely face the ire of India’s Hindu extremists. According to OpenDoors, a Holland-based Christian human rights NGO, violence against Christians in India has increased since 2016. Churches have been destroyed; priests, nuns and parishioners have been beaten.

On April 5, the members of the Uttar Pradeish’s Hindu Yuva Vahini group forced the police to halt prayers at a church in the town of Maharajganj, alleging that it was forcing Indians to convert to Christianity.

India’s Dalit community – so-called “untouchables” – is also being targeted. In July 2016, seven members of a a Dalit family in Una town, in western Gujarat, were beaten for skinning a dead cow – a traditional occupation in this outcast community. The event sparked nationwide protests, but the government’s response has been tepid.

What is left of secular India?

Cow protection may have made India “a subject of ridicule internationally”, as one commentator wrote online in The Daily O news site, but it is not the only sign of the resurgent Hindu cultural nationalism that Modi’s administration has ushered in.

April 2017 saw moral vigilantes targeting inter-faith couples, claiming that when Muslim boys date Hindu girls it represents a “love jihad”. These “anti-Romeo squads” have attacked many young couples, sometimes beating the men to death.
 

From meat politics to love jihads, such incidents have strained India’s constitutional values and secular fabric, leaving many to wonder whether Prime Minister Modi’s development agenda – for which he has declared “Sab Ka Saath Sab Vikaas” (development for all together) – is just a farce.

Indeed, the atmosphere of fear and insecurity stoked among India’s minorities may have been intentionally crafted to consolidate Hindu power in the upcoming 2019 legislative elections.

In the year after Modi’s 2014 election, a series of incidents of communal violence revealed a rising climate of intolerance in India. Intellectuals in India and abroad, including Salman Rushdie, quickly and powerfully denounced the affront to Indian values.

Now, after a humiliating electoral defeat in Uttar Pradesh in March, demoralised secular parties and liberal intellectuals largely fear raising their voices. Has India lost its secular soul?

Aftab Alam is a professor at Aligarh Muslim University.

This story was first published on The Conversation. Read the original.

The post Holy Cow: as Hindu Nationalism Surges in India, Cows are Protected But Minorities Not So Much appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Policeman inspect a room of Mashal Khan. —AFP

Sabrangindia has been consistently focusing on the rise of intolerance in Pakistan, particularly in its targeting of the minorities. A March 2016 Video interview of Rabia Mahmood describes how The Persecution of Minorities in Pakistan is Institutionalised, has Constitutional Sanction’. Within this overall situation the persecution of those following the Ahmadi faith is particularly fragile. An eyewitness at the scene of the incident said Mashal and Abdullah, two Mass Communication students, were attacked because they were believed to be "promoting the Ahmadi faith on Facebook". The eyewitness said a mob of university students first surrounded Abdullah and forced him to recite verses from the Holy Quran. Although he repeatedly denied the accusation that he was an Ahmadi, the students beat him nonetheless.

The newspaper has uploaded a very disturbing Video that records the gruesome killing, with the warning that watching it could be very disturbing tot he viewer. The video is below:

The local police are reported to have arrested at least 45 people had been arrested in connection with the incident by Thursday evening, according to Mardan District Police Officer Dr Mian Saeed.  There is no reported case filed against the two students prior to the incident and police had not been investigating the two on blasphemy charges. It was just rumours that seem to ave incited the mob. The rumours were allegedly circulating among the university's student body.

Mardan's Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police Mohammad Alam Shinwari said the deceased student, Mashal, had been accused of running Facebook pages "which allegedly published blasphemous content". He was attacked by a large group of students and appears to have succumbed to a gunshot wound, the DIG said.“The charged students then wanted to burn his body,” Shinwari said, before police intervened.

'Beaten and bloody': eyewitnesses recount horror
The police, when alerted, reached the site of the attack and rescued Abdullah, after which the mob set its sights on Mashal, who was in the hostel at the time, the eyewitness said.Mashal was beaten and shot by the mob and succumbed to the injuries he received.

Video footage of the incident showed Mashal lying on the floor surrounded by men. The student was not moving and his body bore marks of severe torture. Men could be seen kicking his lifeless body and beating it with wooden planks. Towards the end of the video, he was pulled from his clothes by an unidentified man.

Reports also say that a student requesting anonymity said several leaders of the university's student bodies were part of the attacking mob.  One of Mashal's teachers later told Reuters that he was a passionate and critical student.“He was brilliant and inquisitive, always complaining about the political system of the country, but I never heard him saying anything controversial against the religion,” the teacher said.

'Police unable to control the situation'
University administration official Fayaz Ali Shah confirmed that the mob of students had killed Mashal over allegations of 'blasphemy'.

He said over 20 officers had arrived at the scene, were unable to control the situation because there were so many students involved.

Hostel warden Muhammad Ali, recounting the incident, claimed that: "Three to four thousand students were approaching. I was alerted that they were approaching, so I closed the gates but they broke in, found Mashal and fired at him and started beating him."

Students said police had been alerted of the incident and were present on campus at the time. When asked why they didn't intervene, police said there were "too many people" in the mob for them to take on.

Related Articles:
1.  Ahmadis under fresh attack, Pakistan
2.  Distressing state of Pakistan’s minorities

The post The Lynch Mob Across the Border: Mardan Univ Student Killed for ‘Blasphemy’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In recent days many slaughter houses in UP have been sealed. It is claimed that such action has been taken only against illegal slaughter houses. The fact however is that people belonging to a particular religion have been targeted.

Whenever there is any talk of slaughter of animals it is commonly assumed that only Muslims who love meat are engaged in this business. However, you will be surprised to know that the biggest modern slaughter houses in India which export beef have little to do with the followers of Islam. In fact, the big players are from the Hindu community.

Allow me to introduce you to the Hindu owners of some of the largest slaughter houses in India.

Al Kabeer Exports Pvt. Ltd.: Do not get misled by the name. This is the largest beef exporting company in the country. The largest slaughter house in India is spread over nearly 400 acres in Rudrak village in Telangana state. Do you know who owns this slaughter house? The name is Satish Saberwal. This slaughter house is run by Al Kabeer Exporters Pvt. Ltd. With its offices in many countries, last year Al Kabeer did business worth nearly Rs 650 crore.   

Arabian Exports Pvt. Ltd.: Its owner Sunil Kapoor has his office located in Mumbai.

MKR Frozen Food Exports Pvt Ltd: The owner of this Delhi-based company is Madan Abbott.

Al Noor Exports Pvt Ltd: The company is owned by Sunil Sood. He too is not a Muslim. Isn’t it strange? While others are raking in big-bucks, its Muslims who are being demonized. Isn’t it stranger still that this company is located in UP where Yogi Aidyanath is the chief minister? Al Noor’s slaughter house is located in Sher Nagar village in Muzaffarnagar district of UP. This company exports beef to 35 companies.

AOB Exports Pvt. Ltd.: The slaughter house of this company is in Unnao district in UP. This company is owned by OP Arora.

Standard Frozen Foods Exports Pvt. Ltd.: The owner of this company is Kamal Verma and the slaughter house is in Chandpur village in UP’s Unnao district.

Maharashtra Food Processing and Cold Storage Pvt. Ltd.: Sunny Khattar a partner in this company believes that dharm aur dhanda (religion and business) are two separate things and it is wrong to mix the two. The slaughter house of this company is in Paltan taluka, Satara district, Maharashtra.

Apart from the above mentioned, our Hindu brothers own many such companies which are engaged in the exclusive export of beef.

Now let’s take a look at where India stands in the international market in the beef business. The total beef export in the world is estimated at 94.49 lakh metric tons. Brazil exports 18.55 lakh while India too exports 18.50 lakh metric tons. Australia exports 1.36 lakh tons, while America exports 11.2 lakh tons. In other words, India is the top beef exporter in the world.

The question then is, are those who lynched Mohammed Akhlaq unaware that it is their own co-religionists who are the main beef exporters?

Finally, I will only say this: such double standard on the part of the government and some people will destroy forever the communal amity in this country.

Jai Hind!

(Editors’ note: In the international market both cow and buffalo meat is termed beef).

(This video has been received by SabrangIndia through Whatsapp from one of our viewers.)
 

The post Who is making millions in India out of beef export? Muslims? Think Again appeared first on SabrangIndia.