Increasing religious hatred in India; a young Muslim man beaten to death by a mob
Days after being badly beaten by a mob, a young Muslim man in India has passed away.
Hindu vigilantes assaulted Tabrez Ansari on June 18 and coerced him to say Hindu chants. They alleged him of stealing a motorcycle from a house in Jharkhand state.
Several video of the mob attacking the 22-year-old man with sticks have been doing round following his death.
In one video people can be seen forcing him to say “Jai Hanuman” and “Jai Shri Ram” (victory to Hanuman and victory to Shri Ram). Hanuman and Shri Ram are Hindu gods.
Ansari was later reported to police and when police officials arrived he was found tied to a tree. Police alleged that the man admitted to stealing the motorbike along two other accomplices who had managed to flee.
He remained in jail until Saturday. He was brought to a hospital in Jamshedpur after he told them that he was not feeling well. Here he was pronounced dead. His family said he died for being ‘mercilessly’ beaten for several hours.
Tabrez Ansari’s uncle, Maqsood Alam said even if he was caught for theft, it was not justifiable to beat him for hours and ask him to chant Hindu slogans.
Police said they had arrested 11 suspects for torturing the man.
According to a late US government report on international religious freedom, mob attacks had occurred against Muslims in India throughout 2018.
“There were reports of religiously motivated killings, assaults, riots, discrimination, vandalism and actions restricting the right of individuals to practice their religious beliefs,” the report said.
While, the Indian government has rejected the findings saying that it was proud of its secular credentials and status as the largest democracy.
A large number of mob lynching incidents have taken place because of rising cow vigilantism in India. Police also support such incidents and the victim is blamed for a crime. Cow vigilantes are the people who beat or kill people over suspicion of killing or eating cow.
More than 44 people have been butchered and over 280 have been maimed since 2015 in cow protection violence. From 2010 to 2018, about 97 percent of the cow-related crimes have occurred after 2014, following Narendra Modi’s coming into power. Modi, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is a hardliner Hindu nationalist who is also known as ‘Butcher of Gujarat’ for orchestrating Gujarat Massacre.
According to a survey, there has been 500 percent rise in communal divisive language in speeches of political leaders since 2014.
Cow slaughtering is prohibited in 20 out of 29 Indian states.
According to a Human Rights Watch report, in every third of the cow-related cases police have responded to by filing complaint against the victims.
