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13-08-2023
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI/ HARYANA: Hindu far-right organizations have called for an economic boycott of Muslim businesses and keeping Muslims out of villages after deadly communal violence broke out in India’s Haryana state.
Sectarian clashes erupted in Nuh district on July 31 after a religious procession by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad organisation reportedly came under attack, killing six people including two security guards.
The clashes soon spread to other districts. In Gurugram, a mosque was set on fire and its deputy imam, Mohammad Saad, 22, was killed.
So far, Haryana police arrested 312 people and took at least 106 into preventive detention, said Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij.
After the violence, there were protest calls by various Hindu groups.
At one demonstration in Nuh on August 2, in Hansi city of Hisar district, one speaker Krishna Gurjar from Hindu far-right group Bajrang Dal can be heard giving an ultimatum to local businesses to fire any Muslim employees working for them or face a boycott.
“Any shopkeeper who keeps any Muslim employed in his shop, then we will paste posters for their boycott outside their shops and will declare them traitors of our community,” Gurjar said via a loudspeaker in a rickshaw on a busy road with hundreds of followers.
“Only Hindu hawkers will be present here. If after two days any Muslim hawker is found, then whatever will happen to him only he will be responsible.”
Gurjar later media, “I spoke about evicting outsider Muslims, such as Rohingyas.”
Asked if he wants Muslims of Hansi to leave the city, he replied, “Bajrang Dal’s aim is not to scare anyone but Bajrang Dal won’t be scared itself and won’t let the Hindu community be scared.”
Lawyer Shahrukh Alam, who recently challenged hate speech before the courts, called the economic boycott calls against Muslims “part of a pattern of structural violence against them”.
“These demands somehow presume that Muslims have a lesser right to this country, and thus they can be ordered out of towns and districts. Moreover, such demands violate the integrity and security of the Indian nation. They are violative of guaranteed fundamental rights in the Indian Constitution,” Alam said.
Police officials are often seen walking with the Hindu activists at rallies, she said.
“Sometimes, police personnel can be seen observing these hateful rallies from the sidelines. To that end, lack of action from the police is also in breach of the Supreme Court’s orders,” Alam said.
