Tag: Muslim man lynched

Gujarat: Angry with Muslims Playing Well, Pro-Hindutva Locals Lynch Muslim Man at Cricket Match

The Quint has reported that nine men have been arrested for the brutal murder of Salman Vohra, whose uncle noted that one of his ears had almost been bitten off and that a knife injury fatally wounded his kidney.

New Delhi: Angered by the performance of Muslim men in a cricket tournament, Hindu locals of a Gujarat village on June 22 beat a Muslim spectator at a match to death, The Quint has reported.

Twenty-three year-old Salman Vohra was a resident of Polson compound in Gujarat’s Anand and worked in the garment business. A cricket fan, Vohra had gone to watch a match at Chikhodra, his uncle Noman Anwar Vohra told the news outlet.

There had been tension in the atmosphere over pro-Hindutva residents’ opposition to Muslim players doing well in the tournament.

“When they were playing, a section of the crowd began shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’,” an activist, Aasim Khedawala, told Quint.

The match drew a crowd of 5,000 people but Muslims were not more than 500 in number. A drunk man picked a fight with Vohra over where his motorcycle was parked.

“The one who was drunk mistook another Muslim man, Suhail to be Salman [Vohra] and began attacking him. In order to save Suhail from these men, Salman jumped in and the mob surrounded him,” the report said.

A crowd reportedly gathered and chanted in favour of hitting Vohra. His uncle noted that the attackers almost bit his ear off, that a knife wound had damaged his kidney and beaten on his lower waist and neck. He was taken to a hospital for treatment and then referred to a bigger one. He succumbed to his injuries at the second hospital.

Vohra’s wife Mashira is a few weeks pregnant.

Two other Muslim men were also grievously injured, one had to receive 17 stitches and the other, around seven. Maktoob Media has noted that this is the sixth such lynching since June 4.

The family filed a first information report at 4 am on June 23 at the Anand Rural police station.

Nine people have been arrested. They are Mehul Dinesh Parmar, Kiran Mafat Parmar, Mahendra Ramesh Vaghela, Ketan Mahendra Patel, Akshay Narsinh Parmar,Ratilala Raising Parmar, Vijay Mangal Parmar, Mukesh Rajesh Parmar, Rakesh Babu Parmar, Vijay Chhagan Parmarand Ketan Bharat Parmar.

People who spoke to The Quint said that two of the main men who beat him up have not been arrested yet.

Hyderabad member of parliament Asaduddin Owaisi has posted on X the claim that “[s]ome members of the Kshatriya community are reportedly pressurising the police to remove the name of Shakti Singh from the list of accused. He is also a relative of a BJP MLA…”.

Ganesh Ji Will Teach His ‘Bhakts’ a Lesson, Surely

Lord Ganesh – the deity in the pandal where the wretched hungry man was clubbed to death for allegedly stealing prasad – will have something to say to ‘bhakts’ when they appear for judgment.

Piety is now a fatally political thing, make no mistake.

No infrastructure that may have been spawned over the last few years projects as ruthlessly the muscle of new India’s nationalism as religious infrastructure.

Embedded in that projection is a brutal assertion of class, even if by those among the majority community who have little to boast of as durable assets.

The mere fact of belonging to the majority community instills them with the belief that they rule the realm as much as those who actually wield state power.

Some days ago, in the National Capital, a poor person (fortuitously a Muslim named Isar Mohammed?) was caught allegedly stealing prasad (offering to the deity), tied to a pole, and mercilessly lynched for some five hours till he died.

All this while, ostensibly, the deity looked on and did not take his part.

In popular Hindu theological culture, there is a resonant adage: khali paet bhajan na hovei, Gopala. Translated, it means, ‘sorry, lord, cannot pray on an empty stomach.’

That truism seems now to have found its authoritarian reversal: those that have shall get, those that don’t shall die for wanting to get.

There was that time when religious practices were validated by their human content: they were either caring or uncaring of concrete misery among living beings. 

Not any more. 

Gods and corresponding governments now follow the Calvinist principle of “election”: you are either in grace with the gods, or you are not; and in either case, the matter is not subject to reasoned iteration in pursuit of justice.

Indeed, only the propertied can be in a state of grace, their earthly status being proof that god loves them, and will do so hereafter as well.

And forget about what Allah is reported to have said to the Mullah ji who was presented before him upon earthly demise: ‘Send this man to jahanum (hell),’ He is heard to have said.

When the astonished priest complained that all his life he never missed namaz, roza, Haj, giving zakat (charity), etc., Allah retorted, “But what did you do when I visited you?’

“Ya Allah, when did you do so?”

“How did you treat the orphan boy who came to your door for a morsel?”

The so-self-righteous Mullah’s face fell.

“So now, go to jahanum, and none of your ritual allegiance to religion may save you.”

I am quite sure Lord Ganesh – the deity in the pandal where the wretched hungry man was clubbed to death for stealing prasad – will say something similar to the ‘bhakts’ when they appear for judgment.

The Hindu universe has no hell but they will surely receive their comeuppance in their rebirth.

Maybe they will be reborn as hungry sans-culottes, attempting to steal Prasad?

We will watch, along with Lord Ganesh, while the government marches along on its course of sanctifying development with muscular dharmic fanfare to drive home the point that Bharat is mahan and Vishwa guru.

Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.

UP: After Shootout, Scuffle, Mob Lynches Muslim Youth, Leaves Brother Fighting For His Life

Villagers of Bhirpur had reportedly told the deceased, Zafar Alam (18), to stop visiting the village to meet a girl. When they spotted him there on Monday, an altercation followed in which he was eventually killed.

New Delhi: A man was killed and his brother suffered serious injuries in the Bhirpur village in Uttar Pradesh’s Kaushambi district on Monday, March 21, after a mob lynched the former following an altercation, the Times of India reported.

A first information report (FIR) has been lodged against the mob, the members of which are yet to be identified, for the murder of Zafar Alam (18), a resident of Asrauli village, and the injuries sustained by his brother, Noor (26).

Inspector Aditya Vikram Singh of the Pipri police station, under whose jurisdiction Bhirpur village falls, told the newspaper that the incident took place around 10 am on Monday.

Zafar Alam reportedly used to frequent the village to meet a girl from the Kori community. The police said that according to the girl’s parents, the villagers of Bhirpur had warned Zafar against meeting her.

While inspector Singh said that the exact timeline of events is still being pierced together and that the police, in its investigation, is still “corroborating each and every piece of evidence”, he offered a tentative timeline to the Times.

When the villagers spotted Zafar on a motorcycle in the village on Monday, they began chasing him down. While Zafar attempted to flee, he managed to contact Noor, who was near the village at the time and rushed to his aid.

Also read: Recognising the Pattern in Hate Crimes Across Uttar Pradesh

As Zafar continued to try and escape, he reportedly opened fire on the villagers with a katta (country-made pistol). However, when Zafar ran out of bullets, the mob was able to catch him and beat him to death. When Noor arrived, he too, was beaten and was later admitted to a hospital after having sustained severe injuries.

Upon getting this information, Singh said officers from the Pipri station went to the spot, calling for personnel from three other stations to provide back-up. Thereafter, the went to the hospital where Zafar was pronounced dead and Noor still remains, undergoing treatment.

Police pickets have been deployed in the village to maintain law and order.

In Jharkhand’s Dumri, Police File Cases Against Adivasis Targeted by Lynch Mob

In April, one Adivasi man died and three severely injured after a mob beat them up for several hours on the suspicion of cow slaughter.

New Delhi: Two and half months after an Adivasi man in Jharkhand’s Jurmu village was lynched to death and three others severely injured by a mob from the neighbouring Jairagi village on the suspicion of cow slaughter, neither the police nor administration have anything to show by way of action taken except, incredibly, an FIR against the victims of the beating.

Hundreds of villagers from the districts of Gumla, Ranchi and Latehar on Monday attended a protest organised by the Kendriya Jan Sangharsh Samiti in front of the office of the Gumla deputy commissioner, against the alleged apathy of police in apprehending those responsible for the lynching on April 10 in Dumri block.

On that day, Prakash Lakda, a 50-year-old Adivasi man from Jurmu, had allegedly been requested by the owner of a dead ox to carve it. Prakash, along with a few others, set to work. In a while, nearly 40 people gathered at the site, all of them from Jairagi village. The Jairagi mob set themselves upon the Adivasi men, beating them for hours.

Also Read: India’s Legal System Should Recognise Lynching as a Hate Crime

The Wire previously reported the findings of a team of rights activists under the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha collective. The report found that the mob had chanted slogans like “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Bajrang Bali” while beating the Adivasis and forced them to chant the slogans too.

The report said all the four victims “were beaten all the way to Jairagi chowk, about a kilometre away from the place where the violence started”. After being beaten for around three hours, the victims were dumped by the perpetrators in front of the Dumri police station at around midnight.

Jharkhand villagers from three districts sat in protest and submitted a memorandum to the Gumla Deputy Commissioner. Photo: Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha

The report said instead of rushing the victims to hospital, the police made them wait in the cold for around four hours. While Prakash died, three others, Peter Kerketta, Belarius Minj and Janerius Minj were severely injured.

It is these three and the nearly 20 other Adivasi survivors of the lynching against whom cow slaughter charges have been drawn up. The victims have allegedly told police repeatedly that it was a dead ox they were carving. In rural Jharkhand, Adivasis consume meat of dead cows and oxen.

Also Read: Gau Raksha is Disrupting the Bovine Economy and Threatening Farmers’ Fields

The FIR and several discrepancies in the police’s report seem to overwhelmingly suggest bias against the victims.

A press statement issued by the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha noted that the Gumla district court has rejected the anticipatory bail filed by the victims for reasons that have much to do with administrative machinations. “The court order clarifies that police did not include the testimonies of the residents of Jurmu in the case diary. Even the testimony of the dead ox owner has not been recorded properly by the police. The facts have been recorded in a distorted manner in favour of the perpetrators of lynching,” the group writes in the statement.

Highlighted portions of the Gumla district court order show selective inclusion of villagers’ accounts by police. Photo: Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha

Neither the Mahasabha’s fact-finding report, nor a protest by villagers under the aegis of the Samiti on May 31 could trigger any action. Meanwhile, Jurmu villagers, who had been advised by the local administration to stop supplying mud to a brick kiln being operated by a Jairangi resident, have discovered that the advice has only cornered them further.

The brick kiln owner has allegedly warned Jurmu residents with the line, “khoon ki nadiyan baha denge” (rivers of blood will flow). Adivasi children from Jurmu are allegedly now being denied water from a public hand pump at Jairagi Chowk.

The villagers’ protests come on a day when news of the passing of 22-year-old Tabrez Ansari, who was attacked by a mob in Jharkhand, has taken social media by storm.

In a video of the attack which took place on June 18 in Dhatkidih village of the state’s Seraikela Kharsawan district, the mob which had suspected that he was a thief, can be heard forcing Ansari to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman”. He can be seen pleading with the mob to stop. The police’s report on this incident says villagers handed Ansari over to them but makes no mention of the fact that he had been attacked.