Misri Khan Baloch was one such victim of a crime which local rights groups and family of the dead have called a targeted lynching. Among the accused are Akhiraj Singh and other men who are reportedly associated with cow vigilante groups and hold a previous record as well.

The incident took place while he was transporting buffaloes in a pickup van when a group of men who are reportedly cow vigilantes stopped the van by throwing iron nails on the ground and puncturing the tires. After it stopped they first tried to forcibly get money from him and his companion, demanding rupees 2 lakh. After they said they don’t have money, the men started beating them. The driver of the van managed to escape.

However, the situation became deadly for Misri as a mob gathered around the vehicle and started beating him up. He was beaten with iron rods and sticks on his head which soon led to his death.

The police, as per report by Indian Express, have refused to recognise it as a case of mob lynching, with Banaskantha Superintendent of Police Akshayraj Makwana, saying, “This incident is not a mob lynching. For an incident to be considered a mob lynching, it would need to have a communal aspect. It appears that the accused did not intend to murder but rather intimidate the deceased.”

The Indian Express has noted that Akheraj, one of the accused, has also been implicated in a similar matter of mob lynching in Banaskantha in July 2023 when a Muslim man named Umaid Baloch was similarly beaten by cow vigilantes, one of whom is a co-accused here.

According to a report in Two Circles, the driver who is also an eyewitness has stated the following in his complaint, naming the attackers as well, “At around 5 am, Mishrikhan, Jume Khan, our mother Biki and I set out in my pickup truck to the market in Gawadi. We noticed that a Scorpio was chasing us. Inside the SUV were Akheraj Singh Prabat Singh and others from Vatamwala. They were threatening to kill us.”

Two of the five accused have been detained after the police filed an FIR under sections of 302 (murder), 341 (wrongful restraint), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, being armed with a deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly), 506 (2) (criminal intimidation) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against five people Akherajsinh Parbatsinh Vaghela, Nikulsinh, Jagatsinh, Pravinsinh and Hamirbhai Thakor.

Misri Khan was a 40-year-old Muslim labourer and part-time farmer from Sesan Nava village and the breadwinner for his family.

An organisation called the Minority Coordination Committee Gujarat has called out the killing of Misri Khan as a case of mob lynching. The group has urged the Director General of Police to follow guidelines on mob lynching’s laid out by the Supreme Court.

In the 2018 verdict the Supreme Court, with a bench of Justice Deepak Mishra, A.M. Khanwalikar and DY Chandrachud, had directed states to all take preventive and proactive action against mob lynching, hate crimes, etc.

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A murderous mob killed one and critically injured another over the rumour of cow slaughter on June 18.
 

 

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Image: Network18

Godda, Jharkhand: A strange trend is afoot in Jharkhand. A third incident of cattle vigilantism has come to light in the state. Two Muslim men were lynched on Wednesday in Bankatti village in Godda district on the suspicion of stealing 12 buffaloes. Four people have been arrested so far.
 
The victims have been identified as Sirabuddin Ansari (35) from Taljhari village and Murtaza Ansari (30) from Banjhi village in Godda. They were among the five people who had entered Dullu village to allegedly steal buffaloes on Tuesday and were caught by the mob at Bankatti village. A video circulating on social media shows one of them being hung over a bamboo pole with a head injury and being dragged on the ground. The other three managed to flee.
 
 “Godda Superintendent of Police Rajiv Ranjan Singh said five men had allegedly stolen nearly a dozen buffaloes from a person named Munshi Murmu and others. “After stealing the buffaloes, they had managed to reach Bankatti village, about 2-3 km away, when the villagers spotted them. A hue and cry were raised. The villagers from where the buffaloes were stolen and those of Bankatti gathered. They took back the buffaloes, while three associates of the victims managed to escape. Two men caught by the villagers were beaten up, which led to their deaths,” he said in a report by The Indian Express.
 
The incident took place in a region dominated by Santhal tribes. The SP also said that the villagers were armed with bows and arrows when they caught them. Three escaped and the other two were lynched. The accused villagers, after killing the duo, brought back their bodies to Dullu village on bicycles, according to a PTI report. The SP stated that the bodies of the victims were handed over to their families following a post-mortem.
 
“Murmu and three others – identified as Kaleshwar Soren, Kishan Tudu and Harjohan Kisku – have been arrested in this connection, according to Singh, who added that the situation has been brought under control,” The Wire reported.
 
SP Singh said that the victims had a criminal past and had cases of cattle theft registered against them. “It has come to light that Charku Ansari had gone to jail in a property offence. One of Murtaza’s brother was also sent to jail in a dacoity case recently. Further antecedents are being verified,” said Singh in a report by The Indian Express.
 
Godda MLA Pradeep Yadav of JMM told TOI, “There is resentment among villagers about cattle thefts in the area. I am collecting reports about the incident.”
 
Extra security forces have been deployed in the area to avoid untoward incidents. Attempts to contact the SP, SDPO, Dy. SP (HQ) of Godda police were not successful.
 

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“Though they murdered my husband I don’t want them to lose their lives,” she told this reporter at her home shortly after a court here found the 11 accused guilty of killing him. “I would prefer the court gave them life imprisonment.”
 
The court’s guilty verdict for the 11 men is the first conviction in India for gau rakshaks, the self-styled  cow vigilantes linked to the RSS-BJP-VHP-Bajrang Dal, who have gone on an attack-and-kill spree especially since the BJP-led government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014.
 
While the 11 men, at least one of whom was a well-known BJP leader in this district, have been found guilty of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, three of them were additionally found guilty of conspiracy under section 120(B) of the IPC.
 
Sentencing is due on March 21, Wednesday.
 
Mariam Khatoon implored prime minister Modi to put an end to continuing assaults by the gau rakshaks on innocent Muslims across India.
 
“There is terror of the gau rakshaks among the Muslims and Mr. Modi should realise it is not good for inter community relations,” she said. “Please, for god’s sake, stop it.”

 
She also said that the Hindu neighbours in her village were no less supportive of her and her family than the Muslim community. In fact, she said, never had there been any chasm between the Hindus and Muslims in not just the village but in the entire Ramgarh district.
 
Announcing the verdict in Hindi in open court at about 3.30 pm on Friday, Additional District Judge Om Prakash said that he had considered all evidence and witness statements before ruling the accused as guilty. A full judgement in writing is expected to be delivered along with the sentencing.
 
Alimuddin was waylaid by gau rakshaks at a prominent city thoroughfare on the morning of June 29, 2017, and severely beaten. The gau rakshaks accused him of carrying beef in his car. After the police arrived on the scene he was taken to a local hospital where he shortly died of his injuries.
 
The defendants denied they had assaulted Alimuddin and, instead, claimed he died of in police custody due to police torture. The judge rejected this contention.
 
For hours before the verdict was given the road leading to the courthouse, as well as the court premises itself, was heavily patrolled and guarded by a special police force.
 
The sprawling lawns of the courthouse teemed with young men in bright saffron shirts, many of whom also sported saffron bandanas around their foreheads, who were obviously supporters of the defendants. Many said they were active members of the Bajrang Dal.
 
Women and children from the families of the accused crowded the narrow corridor at the end of which lay Judge Prakash’s courtroom. None, however, but the lawyers and a handful of journalists were allowed into the court, right after the 11 accused, their hands tied with a long, single rope, were marched into the massive iron cage inside the courtroom.
 
Dressed in shirts and trousers, all the accused wore fresh saffron tilaks on their foreheads.
 
This reporter counted at least 22 lawyers on the defendants side, greatly outnumbering the lone public prosecutor flanked by three lawyers that represented Mariam Khatoon’s family.
 
As the judge pronounced his verdict there was stunned silence all around in the courtroom. In conversations with this reporter before the verdict was read the families as well as the Bajrang Dal supporters had appeared confident that most, if not all, the accused would be acquitted.
 
As the team of lawyers left the courtroom the convicts’ families and supporters crowded around individual lawyers trying to make sense of what had just happened.
 
Mariam Khatoon and her family were conspicuous by their absence from the courthouse, although about half a dozen of their well-wishers from her village were present. After the verdict was given, they quietly hurried out.
 
The defendants’ lawyer, M. B. Tripathi, told this reporter they will appeal the conviction at the Jharkhand High Court in Ranchi after the sentencing.
 

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Image Courtesy: Mahesh Kumar A./Associated Press

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966) had fashioned the idea of Hindutva which inspires the right-wing party the BJP, which rules India today. Savarkar had argued in his famous 1928 book ‘Hindutva: who is a Hindu?’ that Muslims were the main enemy of India’s Hindus (see below). India’s ruling BJP, a part of the so-called Sangh Parivar, seems to have viewed the destruction of the Muslim monument, Babri Masjid, as a necessary political task keeping in view its own political and electoral prospects at the time.
 
The present Prime Minister of India had been a volunteer in the campaign to construct a temple for the mythical Hindu god-King Ram at the very spot where the Babri Masjid stood. It was claimed that the disputed mosque stood at the very spot where a Hindu temple for Lord Ram had existed in remote past. Hence it was necessary remove it [k1] to facilitate the proposed temple construction. The Temple/Mosque politics helped the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to gradually gain political power in New Delhi.
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s successful accession to political power in New Delhi in May 2014 was the ultimate outcome of the destruction of the Babri Masjid by right-wing forces. In February-March 2002, when the well-planned and organised carnage of Muslims occurred in Gujarat, the then chief minister Narendra Modi, a former activist of the Sangh Parivar campaign to build a Ram temple at Ayodhya, remained inactive and failed to seriously discharge his command responsibilities.
 
However, the cause of construction of a Hindu temple for God-king Ram at Ayodhya is still alive. The Supreme Court of India in April 2017 ordered the retrial of the two cases pending before it: one relating to law and order issues and the other relating to the issue of alleged conspiracy to demolish the mosque. The demolition of the holy place hurt the religious sentiments of pious Muslims leading to violence in several states of India including metropolitan Mumbai in 1993.
 
The progress towards the establishment of a Hindu rashtra (or nation) made by the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi since May 2014 would have pleased Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. [k2] 
 
Some Studies
 
Paul Brass (‘The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India’. 2003) has argued that it is more important to study how Hindu Muslim violence is organised rather than why they take place. The elements of preparation, planning and execution documented by Brass in his case studies on communal violence in Uttar Pradesh (UP) were present in other communal riots in India, including the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 documented, among others, by the eight-member Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal on Gujarat, 2002, led by Justice VR Krishna Iyer, which published a three- volume report (‘Crime Against Humanity 2003).This writer had the opportunity to participate as a Member of the Tribunal.
 
Vibhuti Narain Rai, a senior police officer studied a communal riot in UP and reported that all those killed were Muslim and all those arrested were also Muslim!
 
Manoj Mitta in his study The Fiction of Fact Finding, 2014, argued that the report of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Supreme Court of India on the Gujarat Carnage, 2002 had failed to establish its case that there was no prosecutable evidence in the case and showed the evidence of guilt was plentiful and had escaped the attention of the SIT. The chairman of the SIT was rewarded with an ambassadorial position. 
 
Achin Vanaik recently published his path-breaking book, Hindutva Rising: Secular Claims, Communal Realities, 2017 providing a compelling picture of the gap between hype and reality of communal violence in India.  Vanaik, however, does not examine the work of VD Savarkar but mentions him passingly.
 
Anti-Muslim violence under Modi Regime, 2014-17
 
Several patterns of unlawful acts of Muslim-baiting during the current Modi regime must be noted, especially those known as’ Ghar Vapasi’ (reconverting Muslims back into Hinduism), ‘love jihad’ (the practice of Muslim men Kidnapping or marrying Hindu women) and ‘cow vigilantism’ (attacks on Muslims for beef-eating or buying and selling of cows for eating). 
 
The last practice has become murderous. A Muslim was lynched by an excited Hindu mob on September 28, 2015. This was part of a series of incidents of anti-Muslim violence in India occurring in a charged atmosphere as happened at village Bisara near Dadri, western Uttar Pradesh. This incident like the demolition of the Babri Masjid, threatened to have far-reaching consequences for the Indian polity. It also sent a wrong message to Pakistan, which has had worsening relations with India after the emergence of the Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.   
 
On the night of September 28, the priest of a local temple was apparently persuaded to make an announcement by the loud speaker that Mohammad Aklaq of Bisara had slaughtered a cow to have a meal. Hearing the patently false message, an incensed mob broke into the home of Aklaq and lynched him besides fatally injuring his son who died later. The cow is considered holy by many Hindus on alleged scriptural grounds and so cannot be slaughtered and eaten.
 
The National Commission for Minorities (NCM), a government body set up to protect the constitutional and legal rights of the minority communities of India, visited Dadri on October 10 and stated that the lynching of Mohammad Aklaq was premeditated and unprovoked. It noted that a sacred place like a temple had been used to exhort one community to commit violence against another and hence calling the event an ‘accident’, as a government minister had done would be an ‘understatement’. The mob had assembled within minutes of the priestly call, which indicated premeditation and planning.
 
The National Commission on Minorities (NCM) expressed concern at the growing vigilantism and moral policing in western Uttar Pradesh. It also noted the failure of police intelligence gathering in the region, implying complicity in the violence on the part of the police.  
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi remained conspicuously silent for many days. When the President of India spoke out on spirit of tolerance, Modi became articulate but only to the extent of expressing ‘sadness’ and mentioning that the event did not concern the central government headed by him. He advised Hindus and Muslims to fight poverty not each other.  There was no word of condemnation or punishment of the guilty. This reaction gave away Modi’s communal bias.
 
In a similar manner, after the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, Modi merely expressed mild concern for the victims of the violence and had no word to mention on criminal prosecution of the guilty or remorse for his own inaction as chief minister of the state. This was callous indifference to a colossal human tragedy.           
After Aklaq, another lynching of a Muslim youth on similar charges occurred in the sensitive state of Jammu and Kashmir, indicating a growing trend of targeted and unaccountable violence against India’s biggest minority community. 
 
The Narendra Modi government since its inception in May 2014 has signally failed to act whenever such incidents of violence against minority community individuals or institutions have taken place. This pattern of behaviour seems to indicate a settled policy of indifference and impunity on the part of the government he leads with regard to routinized communal violence.
 
More recently, Modi remained conspicuously inactive when the chauvinistic Shiv Sena, his ally in Mumbai, attacked the prominent journalist Sudheendra Kulkarni and blackened his face to prevent him from holding a book launch function for the visiting former Foreign Minister of Pakistan Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri. Kasuri responded that he had witnessed more tolerance in Pakistan.

((*** This is an excerpt from KS Subramanian’s essay ‘Babri Masjid 1992 – Gujarat 2002 – Kashmir 2016: How the Sangh Parivar has wrecked India’s secular social fabric by sustained anti-minority violence’. The author is a senior, retired member of the Indian Police Service-IPS.))

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Md. Ashin, father of deceased Md Nasiruddin

Khan and his family, though at the cost of his life, earned attention of the governments run by rival parties, BJP and Trinamul Congress as well as media at both states. But the families of other victims whose horrible murders closer home had foreshadowed Khan’s killing in the desert state were not so fortunate, despite chilling parallels in the two hate crimes.

There was huge political and media outrage over the premeditated killing of Khan on the day of 25^th anniversary of Babri mosque demolition in Rajsamund district of BJP-ruled Rajasthan. The rants of the killer Shambhulal against ‘Love Jihad’ and other purported crimes of Muslims in the murder video, filmed with the help of his nephew and posted to social media revealed the impact of Sangh Parivar’s hate campaigns against Muslims on the monster’s mind. This prompted Vasundhara Raje government to arrest the assassin and announce payment of Rs five lakhs to the victim’s family. Her party and state police portrayed the killer as a lone wolf even after his family divulged his addiction to saffron propaganda videos.

Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of Bengal, the self-declared savior of secularism and Muslims in particular, also sprang up to action. The BJP’s buddy turned bête noire denounced the hate crime as another example of Hindutva terror, sent a high level team comprising ministers and MPs to Khan’s home. She announced payment of Rs three lakhs to his bereaved family, promised educational support to his youngest daughter and job to one of latter’s two elder siblings.

Mamata’s double standard
But Bengal’s prima donna kept mum over the gruesome lynching of Mohammed Nasiruddin, Nasirul Haque and Mohammed Samiruddin on 22 June 2017 at her own backyard. Before Shambhulal and Jharkhand’s cow-protector gangs exhibited the method in their madness, the killers in Mamataland, apparently Hindutva-induced, had filmed their gory act and posted the video clips online. The clipping we accessed showed the Blood-drenched victims praying for their lives only to be pounded with bamboo logs again and again till they breathed their last.

Khan’s killing was a death foretold scene by scene as he too would pray for his life before being bludgeoned to death and charred. The Dinajpur video revealed it was no mob fury but systematic murders at daylight. Local onlookers around watched the public pummeling of the three and their bloody ends but none cared to stop the madness.

Khan’s killing was initially attributed to his ‘affair with a local Hindu woman’ but that did not hold ground following denial by his family and subsequent media and civil society investigations. But the Dinajpur victims were branded as ‘cattle thieves’ by their killers and police alike and it stuck to them despite vehement protests from their families and neighbors.

The Bengal chief minister, who was quick in calling Khan’s murder a hate crime and blaming BJP-RSS for it, did not order any inquiry into that aspect despite increasing communalization of crimes including cattle-lifting in bordering districts like north Dinajpur.  The Sangh Parivar’s moves to pit Hindus, mostly Dalits and other scheduled caste refugees from Bangladesh against Muslims.

The Dinajpur killers are still roaming free as Bengal police and ruling party has virtually condoned the triple murders since a case (case no. 505/17 dated 23/6/2017) has been registered under section 304 of the Indian Penal code instead section 302 making the murders unintentional. Consequently, three Hindu youth who had been arrested obtained bail from the court.

Officially, the case is still ‘under investigation’ but police is in no mood to wind up it fast and file the charge-sheet.  Instead, the cops have allegedly abused and threatened the victims’ families to arrest them if they persist in their inquiries about fate of the case and seek justice for their dear ones. The law enforcers reportedly have been putting pressure on the families and fellow villagers to delete clippings of the murder video, ostensibly to defang a digital trigger to communal clash. But locals construed it as a move to suppress the crucial proof of the crimes. The families are yet to get the copy of the FIR.

In a letter to the district magistrate, SP and SDO, three bereaved families called it ‘cold blooded and pre-planned murders’, mentioned police abuses and demanded ‘CID or CBI probe.’ But the administration and political leadership has stonewalled their demands. Bengal’s big sis also became selective in her show of compassion. She neither bothered to send a district-level team to visit the bereaved nor offered any monetary help to the visibly impoverished families.

Harsh Mander speaking to families of victims of Chopra Lynching

Caravan of Love           
This shocking contrast in Mamata government’s dealing with the victims of two hate crimes has come to fore during a recent visit to Khan and other three victims’ villages by a civil society team led by Harsh Mander and John Dayal who have launched a Karwan-e-Mohabwat (Caravan of Love) campaign. They have been meeting families of victims of group and individual hate crimes across the country to express solidarity with them and spread public awareness about hate crimes.

The team members also met family of Kartik Ghosh, the elderly victim of Basirhat communal riot in July last year, at their Basirhat home.  This correspondent was part of the team that visited Khan’s family at Syedpur in Maldah’s Kaliachak and another migrant youth Sakir Khan of Swarupganj in Chanchol block who died mysteriously in Rajasthan’s capital, Jaipur .  The caravan reached the homes of three lynched men under Islampur and Chopra police station at the last leg of its Bengal tour on 25-26 January this year.

Wife and mother of lynched Nasirul Haque

The slain boys    
Like many jobless and low-paid villagers of Bengal, these youths belonged to families of migrant labors and themselves worked as construction workers in other states including Delhi. Being residents of three villages closer by, these school drop-outs were close friends and did sundry menial jobs together around the area to eke out a living. All three were married and young fathers.  They stayed back home after being egged on by their families, mainly to look after their toddlers and newborns.

Samiruddin of Kandarpar village, eldest among the three deceased was little better placed among the friends. He occasionally employed others as he started manufacturing concrete rings for sanitary pits in the villages. His cousin Abdul Gafur, a junior Imam at Chopra mosque, said deceased Samiruddin was planning to buy a ToTo, a battery-driven auto rickshaw and had taken loan of Rs 40000 for it.

The trap
According to the victims’ families, all three were at their home enjoying special Iftar in the evening of auspicious 27^th day of Ramzan that heralded the forthcoming Id festival. The wives of all three recalled that their husbands received repeated calls on their cell-phones asking them to come to a nearby place to discuss an urgent job contract. All left home on their motorcycles assuring to come back early but never returned. Next morning their families learnt either from locals or police that all three had gone to Durgapur, a Hindu-dominated village, few kilometers away under Chopra police station.

“We were told that our boys had been caught while trying to steal cattle from a local household and beaten to death by an enraged mob which had been looking for culprits for rampant cattle lifting. Police brought back the bodies and sent for post mortem. We don’t know whether the rules for autopsy were properly maintained as we were under for pressure for immediate burial.

We told police that the murders were planned as our boys had been called out and trapped. Have you ever heard that cattle thieves visit their target’s home riding motor cycles,” Md. Ashin, the elderly father of slain Md. Nasiruddin at village Dhologachh, asked.

“But police misbehaved with us and refused to listen to our part. They came to conclusion about our children’s crime before investigation. They called us father or wives of Goru Chors heaping ignominy on our families,” the tearful old man added. Deceased Nasirul’s mother Masida Begum at Kutipara village concurred: “Police threatened to lock up us when we visited police station asking for the justice for our children.’’

Both complained that police received bribes from the accused to water down the case.  While local Trinamul MLA Hamidul Islam asked locals not to raise a hue and cry to avoid communal clash, the ruling party’s panchayat apparatchiks did not bother to visit them or offer any succor to the landless wage-labor families.

Chopra witnessed communal clash in 2016 like many others areas across Bengal. But none of the affected families or their neighbors vented any ire against Hindus per se while mentioning that the killers from Durgapur were ‘refugees’ from Bangladesh. “They are fearsome and aggressive even to other Hindus and we hardly ventured into their area. What they have done to our boys was unforgivable.  But we do not blame all the Hindus here,” Md. Ashin said.

Local boys and men like Jafar Ali, Jishan Rajjak, Saheb Khan and Kashim Ali—mostly seasonal migrant laborers, said that the murder video had gone viral on the day of the lynching itself and they received clippings from various Facebook and Whatsapp groups.  “Police claimed it was not related to our case and wanted us to delete it immediately. But we have identified the victims as our own in the murder video. Why they are trying to hush up,” Ali asked.

Hindu women’s honor violated?
Villagers here do not remember circulation of such lynching video earlier. If the filming of the lynching bore the signature of Hindutva campaign, a ‘rumor’ of  a Hindu women’s  honor being violated by the slain youths pointed to the now familiar pattern of using social media to demonize Muslims and incite hate crimes against them. Md Ashin pointed that his son’s genital was smashed. However, no media reports had mentioned those tales-tell signs of hate crime.

Gafur, Samiruddin’s cousin said he heard it from one Hasrat, a resident of nearby Jhabartala and ‘an accomplice of the three in stealing cycles’. “Hasrat told me that the three had lured away a Hindu girl from Durgapur to Islampur( sub-divisional town) and raped her. Her family and other villagers came to know about it and wanted to avenge it. They asked the girl to set a trap by inviting the boys to her home while pretending to be alone.  My brother and his friends landed in the snare only to be killed mercilessly. Some Durgapur people also linked the killings to a Hindu girl’s dishonor. ” He also said Samir was arrested recently in connection to cycle-stealing case.

Samir’s wife Husnara protested to what Gafur said. “I refused to believe it. My husband was not that type. This Hasrat is a shady character and it was he who had called my husband on that fateful evening. My husband had Rs 40000 with him which was looted.  ” she said. Local TMC panchayat member Md. Sarifuddin too denied any knowledge of Hindu women’s dishonor as the motive for the lynching. “It was a planned murder and police sitting tight on the case even after eight months,” he said.  Gafur later buckled saying he too ‘did not believe Hasrat’.

It is the police’s job to ascertain the true motive behind the murders and unearth the truth if others are only speaking half truths as veteran scribe Dayal felt. Nonetheless, the law of land does not condone lynching or planned murder even if it is motivated by revenge for alleged cattle-lifting or sex crime or the both, he pointed out.

But the team’s visit to Chopra police station along with the three bereaved families revealed that police had virtually outsourced it responsibility to village vigilantes and excused their wild justice as a welcome deterrent. A young lady officer on duty spoke informally: “This area is not good. Villagers here don’t leave cattle thieves if public manage to catch them. One of the three boys had been arrested earlier in connection of cycle-lifting earlier. A case has been started under Section 304 as the murders were apparently unintentional.”

However, the officer In-charge, Gautam Roy was taciturn and refused reply to queries that Mander made – why a murder case under section 302 was not instituted even after three persons were killed in a single incident and why police is not responding to the victims’ families. “I can’t answer. You need to meet our SP,” was his standard reply after he apparently spoke to the district top cop. When the team wanted security to visit Durgapur, he declined leaving it to the team whether they would face any trouble there.

Mander told him that he was familiar with official stonewalling tactics and hostility as former district collector (before he resigned from IAS after Gujarat 2002) which he had encountered more since then.

“Nevertheless, I find it unacceptable that Bengal police under a secular government is no different from states under BJP in their treatment of families of victims of hate crimes, disguised or open. The betrayal of governments of political parties that claim to be secular in failing to defend their minorities rankles painfully and erodes the secular promises of India’s constitution,” he commented later.

The politics behind the silence
The Chopra lynching was not an isolated incident. In the early hours of 27 August, 2017, another two youth, Hafizul Sheikh of Dhubri district in Assam and Anwar Hussain of Patlakhawa village of Cooch Behar district were beaten to death by locals near Barohalia village in Jalpaiguri’s Dhupguri area . They were transporting cattle from local cattle market to Tufanganj in Cooch Behar when they were apprehended by a mob and lynched as cattle thieves. Dhupguri is another area which has recently witnessed BJP’s growth electorally. But Mamata government dealt the incident in Chopra way.

As of 31 August, 2017, West Bengal accounted for 55 percent — or five of nine — deaths recorded in bovine-related attacks reported across India, data-analyzing portal IndiaSpend’s database shows. With six deaths recorded since 2010, West Bengal is now on a par with Uttar Pradesh, which recorded as many deaths in 12 incidents of such violence over eight years. In this same period, West Bengal has reported three incidents – all of which reported fatalities.

In their famous treatise on manufacturing public consent by American big media and the military-industrial behemoths, Noam Chomosky and Edward Hermann had coined the categories of ‘worthy and unworthy’ victims of Cold War era. Those fell for cause of the US-led ‘free world’ were considered worthy of public appreciation while those on the other were unworthy of it. It seems Mamata Banerjee and secular politicians of her hue have adopted that binary in dealing with the victims of communal crimes in BJP-ruled states and their own fiefdoms.

The police response only reflected the state government’s politics.  Mamata has repeated denied the gravity of increasing communal clashes and violence by cow-protectors in Bengal, which so far has taken toll of approx. 40 deaths since she has assumed office in 2011. Further, religious identity of those murdered in Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri has apparently impelled her government to keep the killings under the wrap. They are handy when happens outside her realm but an embarrassment when occurs inside.

For, lynching of Muslim youths in Bengal under her nose compromises her image as the protector of Muslims who comprise 27 per cent of Bengal population. It provides her a crucial vote-bank against mounting BJP campaign to bag Bengal in 2019 through communal polarization.

It may be pointed out that cattle-lifting and smuggling is common in bordering districts of Bengal and an elaborate  chain of organized crime involving Hindu and Muslim police-politicians-criminals operates across the Indo-Bangla border. But recent communalization of the crime and profiling of the murdered youth in that mode is part of the Sangh Parivar campaign that aims at dovetailing north India’s Gau-Rakshak vigilantism with Bengal farmers’ rage against local cattle thieves.

Further, recent riots in Basirhat, Nakasipara and elsewhere in south Bengal has underlined the Sangh Parivar strategy to pit dalit Namashudras and other low-rung Hindus, mostly ‘refugees’ from Bangladesh with bitter memories of religious persecution at the other side of the border against Muslims in a bid to break Mamata’s Matua(a populous Namashudra sect) and Muslim combine.

Hindus and Muslims are almost evenly matched in numbers in North Dinajpur which suffered communal convulsions in Chopra and Raria recently. The lack of justice to victims of the lynching would only make room for hotheads and fundamentalists on the other side of the religious divide. But Mamata seems to be happy to sit tight on the tinder box.

Biswajit Roy is a Calcutta-based retired journalist who had worked with The Telegraph, Times of India, The Statesman as well as Anandabazar Patrika. He served stints in the north-east and north India as well as in his home state, West Bengal. Keen on independent reporting from below, he focuses on human rights issues and grassroots movements of marginal communities as well as struggles against communalism and fundamentalisms of all hues. Roy recently edited a compilation of reports on increasing communal violence in Bengal and politics behind it, published at Kolkata Book fair 2018.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org

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Mohammed Nasiruddin’s Voter I Card | Photograph by Sujay Sen
 
His son, Mohammed Nasiruddin, is one of the three who were killed in a mob lynching for alleged cow theft. Those who killed the three Muslim men, on 22 June, 2017 also filmed the entire incident. Ashin Mohammed came to know of his son’s demise through this video.
 

On our way to the police station, he told me, “A person from our local Islampur thana showed the video and asked, ‘Do you know who this is? People say that he is from this village.’ I saw the video and panicked. I said, “E to hhamar chele!” (This is my son!).

This reporter has a copy of the video but it is difficult to find out which of the three dead is being lynched in the video. He is also uncertain if Ashin Mohammed had seen the same video. Ashin, however, was quite convinced that he had seen the murder of his own son in a video that was shown to him a day after the lynching.

He remembered how the two days unfolded. “It was the month of Ramzan. He had come for iftar. After he finished eating, he received a call. He was told to come for work at the Islampur village, near Chopra. He left after iftar, and I haven’t seen him since.”
 

Asin Mohammed | Photograph by Sujay Sen
 
Mohammed Nasiruddin and his two friends, Nasirul Haque and Mohammed Samiruddin, worked as masons. They arranged for labourers and worked in the construction business together. Everyone in the village reported that they had been working together for some time. However, there were also unverified and contradictory accounts which said that they had been caught for stealing cycles a year ago.  This particular story was related to us by a local imam who changed his version of the events as the day unfolded. We could not verify the validity of this claim. 

An Indian Express report, published at the time of the incident, claims that in the villages of Durgapur, more than two dozen complaints had been lodged at the Chopra police station. The reporter spoke to Atul Chandra Basu, whose two sons were initially arrested for lynching the three Muslim men.  The reporter quotes Basu as saying:
More than two dozen complaints have been lodged from this village alone; the number crosses 50 if you count those lodged from adjoining villages. But the police told us not to bother them with such petty affairs and asked us to handle them ourselves…

So we handled it ourselves.
“Handling it ourselves” means the disturbing trend of taking the law in their own hands to settle matters.  West Bengal in particular has seen a rise in the number of casualties related to cattle. According to a report published in The Quint, West Bengal tops the charts for cattle related violence in 2017. Mohammed Nasiruddin, too, was urged by his villagers to avenge his son’s death. “But I said no. Let the law take its own course. If there is any justice, I will receive it from the courts of this land,” he said.

But justice has been slow for the families of the deceased. The three accused who were arrested for the crime, Asit Basu (aged 28), Ashim Basu (aged 27), and Krishna Poddar (aged 24), were released on bail two weeks after their arrest. The police are yet to file a charge sheet, even after almost six months since the lynching. In spite of the existence of the video, the FIR was filed under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), which is a bailable offence, and not under Section 302, which is non-bailable. The families have also written to the Sub Divisional Officer, requesting them to conduct a CBI inquiry. They also made a written appeal to the Karwaan-e-Mohabbat team.
 

The letter submitted to the SDO | Photograph by Sujay Sen
 
Harsh Mander, John Dayal, and a team of lawyers travelling with the Karwaan-e-Mohabbat team, had visited the Chopra police station, along with one family member from each of the three deceased’s families. But Goutam Roy, the OC of the police station, said that he had strict instructions from the SP to not say anything about the case. 
 

After coming out of the station, Mander commented, “I am extremely disappointed with the state administration. One would expect an administration that claims to be secular to be more considerate towards the minorities. I could have well been in Gujarat and Rajasthan. There is no difference in the apathy and disregard shown to the grieving families. I will write an open letter to the Chief Minister.”

On the other hand, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government has been quite considerate to Afrazul’s family. Afrazul was killed by a man in Rajasthan, who, too, made a video of the killing. The state government has declared that a compensation of five lakh rupees for the family. In this case too, the murder had been filmed by the perpetrators, but the deceased’s families are yet to be visited even by a gram panchayat leader. 
 

A journalist who was at the spot, but who did not wish to be named, said, “This case does not bode well for the Trinamool Congress government. In Afrazul’s case, the murder was in Rajasthan, which has a BJP government. In this case, the lynching has taken place in Bengal by a Hindu-majority mob. The BJP in Bengal, of course, is silent on this case because the perpetrators are Hindus.”

 
Not only has no government official reached out to the deceased families, they claimed to have been threatened by the police if they enquired too much about progress in the case. “The police said that they will lock me up as well,” said Ashin Mohammed. At Nasirul Haque’s house in Kutipara, the family members alleged that the police had been bribed to brush the case aside.  

Nasirul Haque’s mother works in the tea gardens. “After his death, I have not been able to pick one tea leaf.”
 

The tea garden outside Nasirul Haque’s house | Photograph by Sujay Sen
 
Haque’s wife had just delivered a baby, who is two months old. There were posters of children in front of the rooms. The cradle inside the house was empty.

Nasirul Haque’s house | Photograph by Sujay Sen

Souradeep Roy is part of the editorial collective of the Indian Writers’ Forum.
 

Co-published with Newsclick.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

The post The story of three Bengali Muslim households which lost their men to lynching in 2017 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“The attackers were basically anti-social elements who attacked Umar and two other passengers of the pickup as they were smuggling cows. They later asked somebody else to dump Umar’s body on the railway track,” said Alwar SP Rahul Prakash. Prakash said an FIR for murder had been lodged on the basis of a statement by Ilyas Khan, Umar’s uncle. A minor boy, who the police say is an accused, has been taken into custody, and he has allegedly named five other attackers. Umar’s body has been sent to Jaipur for autopsy.

Umar was returning home with his two companions Javed and Tahir after purchasing two cows late on the night of Nov 10. “They purchased the cows at a village about 30 kilometers away as cattle are more expensive in nearby villages,” explains Zila Parishad member Sharif Khan. “The cow protection groups have an excellent network and keep updating their men using cell phones. They were waiting for Umar and his friends when they arrived and immediately started shooting,” says Khan. The incident took place Pahadi Village in Alwar District. Interestingly, it was Alwar that Pehlu Khan was also lynched under similar circumstances.

Kavita Shrivastav, President Peoples Union of Civil Liberty, agrees that the attack on Umar was planned and executed with precision, “They used a belt with iron nails to puncture the tyres of the vehicle in which Umar and his companions were travelling with the cows. This not only shows that they had prior knowledge, but also that they were unconcerned about the consequences of their actions. They enjoy protection from higher powers!” Shrivastav says that this is the fifth incident of lynching in the region. “Abdul Jaffar Qureshi, Pehlu Khan, Zafar Khan and even a non-Muslim man Bhakt Ram have been killed so far,” she says.

Interestingly, first the police filed an FIR against Umar under the Rajasthan Bovine Animal (Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act. It is only after pressure from the villagers and civil society groups that a second FIR was filed against “unknown persons”. Even now, the police are shying away from naming any of the right wing groups allegedly involved in the case.

Also Read
Mauled Body of Umar Thrown on Rail Tracks, PUCL Rajasthan Accuses Police of Complicity
 

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गाना गाते हुए आमद खान (बाएं). हमेशा के लिए शांत हो चुके आमद (दाएं) Image: http://www.thelallantop.com

The village where the incident happened is Dantal, Phulsund Thana, Jaisalmer district.The bhopa of the temple  and the main accused is Ramesh Ram Suthar. The other accused are Tara Ram and Shyam Ram Suthar, brothers of Ramesh
 
Aamad Khan Manganiyar is survived by his wife and four children, one son and one daughter are waiting to get married
 
During Navratra the devi is supposed to come into the bhopa. He had asked Aamad khan to sing raag parcha (devi)which has both powers miraculous and that of destruction, it has always been sung by the Manganiyar in temples. Here Aamad khan was asked to sing and he was not good enough, that they, the bhopa and his brothers screamed at him and probably beat him, broke his instrument that he left the place, since there was a big crowd of devotees, so maybe the Bhopa felt embarrassed that he could not jhumo, (be in a trance)and complained that the bhopas singing was the reason.
 
 Aamad khan was reportedly picked up later. By the bhopa and his brothers family,  Some say that in the maar peet, he fell on a stone and died, some say he was deliberately killed by the bhopa and his brothers. Well it is murder whatever be the manner in which he died. The post mortem report shows serious assault injuries. 
 
An FIR was lodged four days later. According to the localites the Suthars promised to give some money to the bhopa family, But when it didnot come in 4 days they lodged the FIR. Also one of the educated relatives of the manganiyars family arrived from jodhpur and got the FIR lodged. whatever it be, every murder must have an FIR and we are glad the the Manganiyars didnot submit to community pressure of not lodging the FIR
 
This was seen as breaking the village code and lodging an FIR against the Bhopa, who is a religious head and rich. It resulted in  all the communities coming together against the manganiyars. Remember this village is  rajput dominated. Sarpanch Rajput. The suthars are OBC and  have the support of the rajputs and others. 
 
The anger and consolidation of the other communities against them for having taken police recourse, led to the exodus of the 40 manganiyars families.
 
 The day the body was exhumed nobody even gave them water for washing and vaju. Which is when they all Left. And stayed in a close by place called Balad in the open, where they have relatives. The fear was such that they left their cows, goats and one even left a horse behind and didnot have the courage to bring it. Finally the police brought the ghoda. 
 
These manganiyars are so poor and none have ever gone abroad, donot even have passports. They are absolutely local kalakars, who even today get 10 rs for a song. Many go to the NREGA work sites. Very low and poor wages they get in NREGA.
 
The 40 families could not depend on their relatives for too long, so about 20 of 40   families of the manganiyars in exile  left Balad and came into Jaisalmer on the October 9. About 160 of them. Others are with relatives.
 
The police of Phulsund Thana arrested the bhopa and still his two brothers have not been arrested. The district police assured them of a chowki, motivated them to come back but they are not going back. 
 
“The fear is real. They are now in the city will probably do hard labour (mazdoori) and survive. Living in a rein basera, temporary community says PUCL.
 
Was it the ‘Muslim angle’ that got him lynched ? PUCL says possibly not “They are mirasis, the untouchable Muslim dholis although in the category of caste are OBC. (You also have hindu dholis are SCs). If there was the  caste / religion angle then the manganiyars in the first place would not be singing parcha and devi raag in the temple, during navratri, which is a normal feature. The fact that they were not submissive and challenged the caste and religious authority they are facing the wrath.
 
On the October 10, the district collector called the Sarpanch a Rajput to mediate and take the manganiyars back. But it did not work out as the manganiyars are really scared, the brother Baryam of Aamad khan said, that nobody helped us that day when we were requesting for.help when they killed our brothef 
 
What is the village demography of Dantal ? As of now: 15 suthars, 40 manganiyars (=33 have ration card), 250 rajput, 20 charan in dhanis, 50 meghwal ( the last time there was a meghwal Sarpanch ) and then other castes
 
PUCL statement:
 
“The PUCL condemns this murder. This murder as a part of the increasing lawlessness in the state, related to brutal aggression by dominant castes and religions. Lynching of an untouchable, a muslim singer, by the dominant castes with the tacit and active support of the other castes in the village, also because the manganiyar didnot accept their fate and lodged an FIR, so the threats by the rest of the villagers ki gaon ki baat toh gaon mein hi rahni thi, has to be condemned in no uncertain terms. . 
 
*What is the district administration doing that the  community of more than 200 people  had to move out of the village in exile. An already impoverished community who are the nation’s heritage for their incredible music, which is world famous, and not   given support and have to end up as mazdoors in the city as refugees, is shameful. 
 
*The administration should restrain those who are threatening the manganiyars. File criminal cases against them. And immediately restore the Manganiyars  back into the village
 
Demands:
 
— Immediate compensation of Rs 25 lakhs against the untimely death. He is survived by his wife, four children, 2 sons and 2 daughters. Only one daughter and one son is married. Compensation for them.
 
–Vasundhara Raje government is not interested as to what happens to people as just now she is trying to garner votes for the Ajmer and AlwAr seat. Manganiyar votes don’t matter but Rajput, charan, meghwal, suthar votes matter so she is not even sayjng anything.
 
Background:
Rajasthan has been home to some of the most gruesome incidents in recent months. Amad Khan, from a folk community Langar Maganiyaar, would sing during Navratri at the local village temple. This time around he was doing the same when Suthar reportedly asked him to sing a specific raga so that the spirit of the goddess of the temple entered his body. Sutha, according to the locals, would ‘cure’ local problems, getting his authority from the spirit of the goddess as it were.

But this time the goddess eluded Suthar, and he blamed Khan for not singing properly. He assaulted the singer, broke his musical instruments. And at night Khan was reportedly abducted from his residence, with his body being thrown outside the house later. Local reporters said that Khan’s family received threats later and warned against going to the police. His brother told local reporters that they were terrified and so buried his body quietly.

However, a few days later they mustered the courage with the support of relatives and others who visited them to register a complaint with the police. But after this the threats took real shape and at least 20 terrified families of about 200 persons left the village, Suge Khan was reported as having said.

The Dantal village sarpanch, according to the Hindustan Times claimed that Khan had died of a cardiac arrest, and that the Muslims had left the village in anger when the locals did not accompany them to the police station. The police, however, confirmed that he had died of physical assault. Jaisalmer superintendent of police SP Gaurav Yadav has been quoted as saying, “We have assured them of protection if they want to return…We have also spoken to village elders and told them that cases would be lodged if they threaten the Muslims.” Yadav added.

However, caste seems to have played a major part in this violence. PUCL activist Kavita Srivastava told Sabrangindia that since “Amad Khan a Manganiya broke the code and went went against the bhopa, all the communities came together against the Manganiyar in this Rajpur dominated village.” She said that Suthars are OBC’s, relatively few in number and so have the support of the Rajputs here.

Srivastava said that the “anger and consolidation of the other communities against the Manganiyars for having taken police recourse, led to the exodus. The day the body was exhumed nobody even gave them water for washing and prayers. Which is when they all left. And stayed in a close by place called Balad in the open, where they have relatives. The fear was such that they left their horse behind and did not have the courage to bring it to them. Finally the police brought the horse.”

The police have arrested Suthar but two of his accomplices charged with abducting and killing Khan are still at large. The families are too scared to return to the village, Srivastava said adding that they will probably work in the city as labour and somehow survive.

According to Kavita Srivastava, the Muslim angle in this incident is not dominant. Khan and the other families who have fled are “ untouchable Muslim dholis” There are Hindu dholis as well, she said, suffering from the same caste discrimination. “ If there was the caste / religion angle then the manganiyars in the first place would not be singing parcha and devi raag in the temple, during navratri, which is a normal feature,” she added.

The upper caste consolidation against them was because they were not submissive and challenged caste and religious authority, Srivastava said.
 
 

The post Folk Singer Amad Khan Lynched to Death Brutally in Rajasthan, Muslims Flee Village: PUCL Report appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Photo: ALLISON JOYCE/GETTY IMAGES

“It (the Centre) does not support any kind of vigilantism by private persons,” Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar told the apex court.

The solicitor general, the government’s No.2 legal officer, had pointed out to a bench of Justices Dipak Misra, A.M. Khanwilkar and M.M. Shantanagoudar that law and order is a state subject.

To which the bench said: “You say that law and order is a state subject and states are taking actions as per law. You don’t protect any kind of vigilantis

The court sought the help of the Centre on how to handle

social media. Social media has been used to ship up frenzied mobs to attack.

The solicitor general said the Union government is of the view that no vigilante group has any space in the country.

Counsel for Gujarat and Jharkhand, both states ruled by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, informed the court that appropriate action has been taken against those involved in violence in the name of cow vigilantism.

The bench recorded their submission and asked the Centre and other states to file their report regarding to the violent incidents in four weeks, and posted the matter for September 6.

The apex court had on April 7 sought the response of six states on the plea, filed on October 21 last year, seeking action against cow vigilantes who were allegedly indulging in violence and committing atrocities against Dalits and Muslims.

Activist Tehseen S. Poonawalla, in his plea, said violence committed by these ‘Gau Raksha’ groups have reached such proportions that even the Prime Minister had declared them as people who were “destroying the society”.

The plea also alleged that these groups were committing atrocities against Dalits and minorities in the name of protecting cows and other bovines and they needed to be “regulated and banned in the interest of social harmony, public morality and law and order in the country”.

”The menace caused by the so-called cow protection groups is spreading fast to every nook and corner of the country and is creating disharmony among various communities and castes,” the petition submitted.

The plea sought to declare as ‘unconstitutional’ sections of the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act of 1954, Maharashtra Animal Preservation Act of 1976 and Karnataka Prevention of Cow Slaughter & Cattle Preservation Act 1964 that provide for protection of persons acting in good faith.

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