NEW DELHI: India is facing a troubling rise in hatred and violence directed towards religious minorities, particularly Muslims, Dalits and Christians, western media, international researchers and experts said. This has also raised significant concerns about religious tolerance and communal harmony in India.
Many events across several regions of India, as reported by western media on Sunday, show the intensity of this issue in India.
The escalating situation is also challenging India’s self-proclaimed secular and democratic identity, causing concern among law-abiding and peace-loving citizens, especially following the BJP government ideologically named it Bharat with a focus on Hindutva principles.
A clear increase in hate attacks on Muslims has been seen in the run up to and post inauguration of the disputed Ram Temple in Ayodhya on Monday.
Muslims Targeted in India Amid Rising Extremism, Religious Intolerance
In many cases, Muslims have found themselves to be at the receiving end as the state and government machinery either connived with the mobs or looked the other way at the violence.
A Muslim teenager was attacked and paraded naked by a mob chanting Hindutva religious slogan for “disrespecting” a Hindutva saffron flag in Sangareddy district of Telangana state, India.
The Hindutva mobs include BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal put fire on the 19-year-old Muslim victim’s private part and put out its video on different social media platforms. The terror Hindutva mob’s ghastly act took place as extremist Narendra Modi was inaugurating the temple built on the ruins of the historical Babri Masjid.
In Mumbai, the Hindutva mobs also ransacked shops, damaged cars of Muslims and attacked several people, days following violence broke out in the city’s Mira Road suburb on the eve of the controversial Ram temple inauguration.
Clashes took place between Muslims and Hindutva groups following the latter insisted that their procession be permitted to pass through a Muslim neighbourhood despite police personnel objections.
Many Muslims were wounded during the clashes and Muslims were arrested. The Hindutva authorities’ bulldozed Muslim shops in Muslim-dominated part of Mira Road’s Naya Nagar of Mumbai.
Earlier, a Muslim shop employee also faced harassment by a group of Hindutvas over a poster of Hindu deity Ram at a shop in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
The police have started legal action after the incident wherein a mob objected to the poster of the Hindu deity at Aman General Shop, owned by Rakesh Borai, and misbehaved with the Muslim worker.
The Hindutva mob also hurled communal slurs and also assaulted two Muslim employees, Girish and Mohammad Ayub Khan.
On the day of the inauguration of the controversial temple, a Hindutva mob also hoisted a saffron flag carrying an image of Ayodhya’s Ram temple on a church in the Jhabua city of Madhya Pradesh state of India. The incident gained a lot of attention following a video surfaced on social media capturing Hindutva terrorists placing the flags atop the church amid chants of “Jai Shri Ram.”
Similarly, a Muslim youth, Mehdi Hasan, was also brutally attacked and killed in the Uttar Pradesh city of Noida on the same day.
