At least six killed in anti-Muslim violence after mosque demolition in India

At least six people have been killed in India and dozens severely injured during communal clashes against Muslims after the demolition of a mosque and an adjoining madrasa by the authorities in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

The municipal authorities in Haldwani bulldozed the Mariyam mosque and the Abdul Razzaq Zakariya madrasa on Thursday, saying it was an “illegal” construction. Afterward, the locals came out to protest.

The authorities arrived at approximately 3:30 pm along with bulldozers, and proceeded with the razing with force, even after the locals demanded to produce a demolition order. “When the police arrived with bulldozers, the men were at work. When the women protested the demolition, the police baton charged and tear gassed us,” resident Najma Khanum, 21, told Al Jazeera.

Reports say that the demonstration turned violent and the police said Muslims stone-pelted and torched vehicles in retaliation, which prompted the police to fire at the gatherings.

“People came out to protest, police lathi-charged (baton charged) and fired rubber bullets, and tear gas shells at the residents, injuring those who had gathered to protest the demolition,” a resident, Ahmad, told The Observer Post.

According to the Maktoob media website, a Muslim shop owner in the area, who was hit by the rubber bullet fired by the police while trying to save the women protesters, said, “Police were brutally beating women with lathis, misbehaving with us, throwing Islamophobic slurs like ‘katwe’ and ‘mulle’.”

“While we were being beaten up by the police, a mob set the transformer of the area on fire which resulted in a power outage, and police took advantage of that too. We were surrounded by the police from each side,” he added.

“They would have killed all of us (Muslims), as they were attacking us without counting or looking. Just aimless beating but targeted attack.”

“I cannot tell you in words the kind of brutality unleashed upon us and our women but they aim to make India, Palestine for Muslims,” a local told Maktoob.

In the midst of intensifying tensions, the state government granted authorization to security personnel to employ lethal force against any individuals causing disruption. Additionally, a directive was issued to shoot-on-sight rioters.

Ahmad said the “Police used machine guns to shoot people,” adding “Hindu mobs joined police and shot a Muslim youth, leaving him dead.”

Locals said that all of those killed in the police firing were Muslim.

Over 100 policemen sustained injuries during the unrest that ensued in the aftermath of the demolition, according to reports.

The chief minister of Uttarakhand, Pushkar Singh Dhami, following a meeting with officials, reached to a decision to impose a curfew across Haldwani.

Despite the curfew in effect, Hindu mobs reportedly vandalized properties owned by Muslims on the street, while also verbally assaulting them, during the late hours of Thursday.

Multiple videos surfacing on the internet show male police officers mercilessly beating women protesters, and Hindu mobs making racial slurs against Muslims and calls for raping Muslim women.

“Katuwo (an Islamophobic slur against Muslims), we will rape your sisters,” one of them was heard saying.

The violence comes a day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Uttarakhand state enacted the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), becoming the first Indian state to do so.

According to the UCC, there will be one common law that all religious communities would be forced to adhere may it be marriage, divorce, or inheritance of property, and banishes the practice of religious Sharia law.

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On Tuesday, the infamous Hindutva politician Praveen Togadia delivered a speech in Haldwani inciting violence against Muslims.

In the video of the speech surfaced on social media, he can be heard calling Muslims “monsters” and encouraging Hindus to distribute trishul (a three-edged weapon) on a large scale across the country.

Both the mosque and the madrasa were built in 2002, on land leased from the government (Nazul Land) owned by one Abdul Malik, a resident of the locality Banbhoolpura, where the incident occurred.

The central government seeks the land for railway expansion, and the issue is already being heard in the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Malik’s wife, Safia Malik, claims that the land on which the mosque and madrasa were built was leased out in 1937 and bought by her family in 1994, she had also approached the Uttarakhand High Court regarding the claim on Tuesday.

Earlier in December, Dhami referred to encroachments as “land jihad”, while announcing the state government’s success in reclaiming 5000 acres of land, and vowed to continue the practice.

“We were successful in freeing more than 5000 acres of land by getting rid of land jihad, and the drive shall continue till all illegal and forceful possessions are removed,” Dhami was quoted as saying.

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In January last year, Haldwani, a town nestled in the sub-Himalayas approximately 270 km (170 miles) northeast of New Delhi, experienced extensive demonstrations.

The protests erupted following the issuance of an order by the authorities to demolish nearly 4,000 residences, which were accused of encroaching upon land belonging to the state-operated railways.

Following pressure from the demonstrations, the supreme court of India stepped in and stayed the order which was issued by the state’s high court, saying 50,000 people “cannot be uprooted overnight”.

Since prime minister Narendra Modi assumed office in 2014, there has been a significant increase in demands for India to legally establish Hindu dominance.

This has caused growing concern among the Muslim minority, comprising approximately 210 million individuals, who live in fear regarding their future.

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