Tue 17 March 2020:
Thousands are still displaced in Delhi, India, almost three weeks after the worst religious violence the city has seen in decades.
Mosques, schools, homes and businesses were torched and looted by violent mobs, mostly targeting Muslims. Bodies were still being recovered from sewer drains more than a week after the violence, and officials say more than 50 are dead and more than 200 people were injured. The violence took place over three days starting on Feb. 23, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was hosting U.S. President Donald Trump for a two-day visit.
Relief camps set up across the city are overwhelmed with demand by people who have lost everything. Some of them are government run, others by NGOs.
A ruined mosque in Shiv Vihar, north-east Delhi, which was attacked by Hindu rioters on 25 February. The rioters came in lorries with gas cylinders that were used as explosives. The rioters attacked all four mosques of Shiv Vihar in the same way. Photograph: Shaikh Azizur Rahman
“They have lost access to electricity. They have lost access to clean washrooms, they have lost access to their homes,” Gurpreet Singh, a volunteer with international humanitarian organization Khalsa Aid, said from Delhi. “We’ve seen people who lost their kids. We’ve seen people who have lost their parents.”
The group was one of the first on the ground to provide immediate relief to the victims, starting with the Sikh practice of “langar,” a community kitchen providing free meals to anyone regardless of caste or faith.
Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah told India’s parliament on Wednesday that the government would not spare anyone involved with the violence, regardless of religion or party affiliation. Shah also said that based on the government’s first impression, the riots were a product of a “pre-planned conspiracy,” although he didn’t say by whom.
The violence came after months of protest across the country over a controversial bill passed by parliament in December. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) provides a path to citizenship for undocumented migrants from neighbouring countries, but excludes Muslims.
Critics of the bill see it as an escalation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s long-standing Hindu nationalist agenda, driving a wedge between Hindus and Muslims in the country and reawakening religious divides.
The United Nations has challenged the bill, taking it to India’s Supreme Court. India defended the legislation as an “internal matter.”
This video contains footage from the late-February street clashes said to have been sparked by tension over the bill, and of the crackdown by government forces
Afraid to go home
While things have calmed in Delhi, the fear of further violence is enough to keep some people away from the relief camps despite their need for help. Some are also too afraid to go home.
“Right now, many people are scared to be in the relief camps because they are still scared there might be attacks in the future,” said Singh. “Rather, they are taking shelter at their relatives or renting nearby homes.”
Online, the Delhi Relief Collective has coordinated a global relief effort, raising more than $61,000 for those in need and, in particular, debunking misinformation about the violence.
“Initially this group was just a bunch of folks who were concerned about what was happening back home, or what was happening there in India,” coordinator Abdul Basit told media.
Illnesses like skin rashes and urinary tract infections have been afflicting people across the camps, and volunteers have specifically pointed to the lack of adequate toilet facilities as one of the main reasons why.
“There is a huge issue of toilets, which groups have been trying to manage but have not succeeded yet,” Basit said.
Pressure tactics by Police
Most victims of the riots now believe that police complicity in the violence means they will never receive justice. Mehmood Pracha, a lawyer who is providing free legal assistance to riot victims, alleged that the police were now trying to prevent the mobs that carried out the violence being brought to account.
“Police are using pressure tactics and trying to ensure that no complaint is filed against the rioters,” said Pracha. “We have received hundreds of complaints from Muslim people that police are threatening people, including women and children, that if they filed complaints, they would be implicated in false cases.”
Even a retired Muslim policeman said no officers had responded to dozens of calls as his house was looted in the riots. Mahmood Khan, 66, who worked for Delhi police all his life, had his house raided three times by Hindu mobs. He said no police had responded to his calls, his letter to a senior officer had gone unanswered and the police had initially refused to let him file a report about the damage.
“Maybe they will pretend to look for the culprits but in the end they will be protected,” said Khan. “We are Muslims. There is no justice for us.”
“O, Allah, why didn’t you make me a Hindu?”
And then there’s the composition of the police. The Delhi force, numbering around 80,000, has fewer than 2,000 Muslim officers and just a handful of Muslim commanders, according to an analysis done in 2017 by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Delhi police officials did not deny this, and Muslim leaders said that police behavior was biased across India.
“Indian police are extremely colonial and caste-ist,” said Shahid Siddiqui, a former member of Parliament. Police behavior, he said, is always “more violent and aggressive toward the weak.”
India’s population is about 80 percent Hindu, and gangs of Hindus threatened Muslims in several Delhi neighborhoods to leave before the Hindu holiday Holi that was celebrated this week.
One Muslim woman, who goes by the name Baby, opened her door a few days ago to find 50 men outside with a notebook in their hands, listing the addresses of Muslims. She packed up. She may be leaving soon.
“O, Allah, why didn’t you make me a Hindu?” she said, her voice quavering. “Is it my fault that I was born a Muslim?”
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