• In Gurugram, a mob of far-right Hindus attacked a mosque in a suburb of New Delhi. Tragically, the incident resulted in the death of 19-year-old Maulana Saad, the prayer leader of the Anjuman Jama Mosque.
• Several Muslim-owned shops and establishments have been targeted and vandalized, leading to a sense of insecurity and fear among the affected communities.
In a distressing wave of communal violence, Northern India is grappling with riots that have sparked fear and chaos in the region. The situation escalated earlier this week in the Nuh district of Haryana, as clashes erupted between two communities. The state’s BJP chief minister’s remarks about incapable police protection further added to the unrest.
Gurugram, a city known for its gleaming towers and multinational corporations, became a hotspot of violence when a mob of far-right Hindus attacked a mosque in a suburb of New Delhi. Tragically, 19-year-old Maulana Saad, the prayer leader of the Anjuman Jama Mosque, lost his life in the heinous attack, while three others were present during the assault. Hindu far-right groups aligned with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been campaigning against Friday prayers in Gurugram, and the Anjuman Mosque was one of the few places officially recognized for holding prayers.
The mob, consisting of around 50 to 60 individuals, unleashed a barrage of firing and arson at the mosque, causing the death of one person and injuring another. Authorities have taken some suspects into custody and launched an investigation into the incident, but the tension remains palpable in the city as mobs continue to vandalize and set fire to shops, mostly owned by Muslims.
This incident follows violent clashes between Hindu and Muslim communities in Nuh district, where a curfew has been imposed after four people, including two police personnel, were killed. The violence erupted when a Hindu religious procession passed through the Muslim-majority region and invoked riots.
Earlier this week, another disturbing incident added to the rising tensions in Northern India when a railway security guard, Chetan Singh, was arrested for a shocking act of violence on a train. Singh allegedly shot dead a colleague and three Muslim passengers and committed a hate crime.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media in India is attempting to shift the narrative by providing a defence for the extremist murderer. The media’s coverage often portrays the perpetrator as mentally ill or stress-driven, seemingly to downplay the severity of his hate-crime and to hide the fact that he hailed Modi after committing the murders.
The communal riots and hate-fuelled attacks in Northern India serve as a stark reminder of the urgent need for collective efforts to promote peace, tolerance, and communal harmony.
The following image circulating on the internet further shows all the hatred-induced events and crimes that have occurred in India in the past week:
The voices calling for unity and solidarity are silenced by media not giving importance to these coverages and fuelling hatred by theorising ‘who started it first?‘. As India grapples with the aftermath of these communal riots, individuals, communities, and leaders must come together, empathize with those affected, and work tirelessly towards lasting solutions that uphold the principles of peace, unity, and tolerance.
[…] spread to Gurugram, another Haryana city on the outskirts of New Delhi. During these events, a young imam tragically lost his life in a mob assault, and a mosque was set on […]
I feel for muslims in india. I also can relate when buddist radical groups were attacking Sri lankan mosques. And police and army just spectating. You feel very vunerable and that realization of the government don’t give two cents about minorities.