EDITORIAL: In a shocking incident the other day broadcast live on TV, Atiq Ahmad, a former member of Indian parliament and his brother were in police custody talking to journalists in Uttar Pradesh (UP) town of Prayagraj when three men fired more than 20 bullets at them from close range.
Both men died on the spot while the police spared their fire until the end, slightly injuring one of the assassins in the hand. Till late in the day, no action was taken against 20 policemen in charge of the two brothers’ security.
A week earlier, the police had killed Atiq Ahmad’s 19-year-old son, Asad, in what was claimed to be an ‘encounter’. Moreover, the judiciary had not allowed the grieving father to attend the funeral of his son.
There have been a few cases in this country as well of an accused/convict getting killed while being escorted by one or two policemen to a court hearing. But the motive in such incidents is always revenge for murder.
There was no such personal motive in the present case. In fact, at least one murderer raised the Hindu nationalist battle cry slogan “Jai Shri Ram (hail Lord Ram)”. And all of them calmly surrendered, handing over their pistols to the police.
According to reports, they later told the police that they had wanted to kill the two Muslim brothers to make “a name for ourselves.” To them this brazen act of communal hatred was worthy of applause by ‘Sangh Parivar’ supporters and sympathisers.
It was a correct expectation in the BJP-ruled UP where the saffron robed monk-turned-politician Chief Minister, Yogi Aditynath, has regularly been making incendiary speeches against Muslims also bulldozing many homes of Muslims and destroying their businesses on false pretexts.
Faced with criticism of police failure to protect the Ahmad brothers, he said a judicial inquiry into the incident had been ordered, and a report (already?) submitted to the home ministry.
Given his government’s track record, it is a matter of time before all three assassins will walk free as champions of BJP-RSS combine’s Hindutva project of turning India into a Hindu rashtra.
It is worth noting that since Yogi took office as chief minister of the country’s most populous state in 2017, there has been an exponential rise in extra-judicial killings by the police. Muslims are targeted disproportionately.
It is an informal policy being carried out with a nod from the Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has built his career on Muslim bashing and presiding over the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom as chief minister of Gujarat state.
As PM, he has pursued a systematic exclusion of Muslims through discriminatory laws and policies, including giving a licence to Hindu vigilantes to kill Muslims for eating or possessing cow meat, convert poor Muslims in backward areas to Hinduism under a “Ghar Wapsi (return home)” programme, and forcing any solitary wanderer to chant “Jai Shri Ram’.
It is no surprise then that Modi maintains a deafening silence as Hindu extremist leaders deliver anti-Muslim tirades, even threatening of conducting ‘ethnic cleansing’.
As long the BJP-RSS combine is at the helm over 200 million Muslims of India will have to live in constant fear for their lives.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023