After the horrific violence on Ram Navami processions across the country which left one elderly Hindu man dead and several dozens, including policemen, injured, now similar attacks were reported yesterday on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti.
A procession in Jahangirpuri, Delhi was attacked with stones and gunshots were also fired. This area also saw unrest during the anti-CAA protests, and a local Muslim leader Ansar is emerging as a key figure in this violence. Jahangirpuri area is notorious for crime, and Hindus have been targeted several times in this and other adjacent areas of North-West Delhi.
According to the FIR lodged by police, the Hanuman Jayanti yatra was going on peacefully. However, when it reached near a masjid, situated just 50 m away from a temple to where the procession was headed, few people came out and started arguing with the people in the procession. After picking up this deliberated argument, the Muslim extremists started stone pelting mostly from rooftops, indicating prior planning. There are also reports of firing by the rioters, and several vehicles were also damaged. According to people in the Hanuman Jayanti procession, stones and bottles were pelted on them. They said that the attack was pre-planned, as the attackers were well-stocked with stones and bottles on the rooftops.
Police Sub Inspector Medha Lal got a bullet injury in his left hand, and 7 other police officers and a civilian got severely injured. 4 or 5 cars were damaged and a two-wheeler was set on fire. SI Medha Lal said the attackers were shouting slogans in either Bengali or Bangladeshi dialect of Bengali.
Police has arrested 14 people for the violence thus far, including 21-year-old Md. Aslam who fired the bullet that hit the sub-inspector – the pistol used by Aslam has also been recovered, and he was arrested for the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi riots as well (he was presumably released on bail).
Senior police officers also reached the spot to control the situation and tried to keep the peace by appealing to both groups, but one party kept on throwing stones. 40 to 50 tear shells were used to disperse the crowd and to bring the situation under control.
Despite the FIR filed by police clearly outlining how Muslim extremists started the violence, in a sign of the usual balancing act of our secular State, 5 Hindus, including a juvenile, who played a key role in organising the Hanuman Jayanti yatra have been arrested by Delhi Police after intervention by the extremist Deobandi outfit Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind.
A similar attack was reported from Kurnool district of AP where stones were pelted at a Hanuman Jayanti yatra in Holagunda. The passing yatra and ‘loud music’ is said to have ‘irked’ people present inside a local mosque for an Iftar gathering, leading to the stone pelting and violence. Around 15 people have been injured, and 20 arrested. Kurnool is emerging as a centre of PFI radicals – recently, a Muslim head constable of AP Police had been arrested for his role in PFI/SDPI attack on a Atmakur police station in the district.
In Uttarakhand, stones were pelted by Muslim extremists from rooftops during a Hanuman Jayanti procession in Dada Patti village, Bhagwanpur police station area, Haridwar district. Reports of shots being fired have also emerged. Around 10 people, including policemen have been injured in this attack.
There are also reports of violence from Hubli, Karnataka. Here, a huge mob gathered outside Old Hubli police station raising ‘Nara-e-Takbeer…Allah-o-akbar’ slogans over a ‘provocative’ Facebook post, and they later started stone pelting and damaging vehicles. This resulted in the injury of 12 policemen, out of which 2 are in critical condition. As is their wont, a nearby Hanuman mandir was also allegedly attacked. 46 people have been arrested for what the authorities believe was a planned attack, and Section 144 was imposed on the entire city.
Such incidents clearly show that Islamists have little fear of police, and the prospect of being arrested and tried seems to have negligible deterrent effect. This can be due to two causes 1.) They have grown accustomed to being treated softly by our secular State, and of judiciary putting their ‘human rights’ on a higher pedestal compared to the rights of ordinary Hindu citizens 2.) They are supported and backed by Muslim religious & political outfits and Lutyens’ lawyer/activists who ensure strong legal defense, and financial support to the families of accused. Secular political outfits also back these offenders to maintain the Muslim votebank.
Unless our State drops the disastrous idea of secularism, which has brought our nation to this sorry law & order situation 75 years after a bloody partition due to Islamist aggression, and starts cracking down on the Islamist organizations and clerics who seed anti-Hindu bigotry and supremacist ideas into Muslim youth, our country will descend into further chaos and such seemingly low-level, randomized violence will steadily acquire more menacing proportions and open calls for sedition.
