In the past three years, mob violence, including lynching, particularly by cow vigilantes, has almost become a strategy to intimidate Muslims.
ON JUNE 26, MUSLIMS OF KHANDAWLI Village in Faridabad district of Haryana, on the outskirts of New Delhi were in no mood to celebrate Ramzan, or Eid. Sounds of wailing filled the narrow streets of the village. Women gathered around a shell-shocked Saira, whose 16-year-old son, Junaid Khan, had been brutally murdered on a train from Delhi bound for Mathura. The men offered prayers wearing black armbands in protest.
What provided the trigger for the attack on the teenager was not clear. Reports said that it was over an argument over sharing of a seat on a crowded train that resulted in the skirmish. But Junaid’s family and friends maintain that it was Junaid’s skull cap and his brothers’ beards, which gave away their religious identity, that led to the attack. The assaulters pulled Junaid’s cap and stamped on it, and even tried to pull the beards of his siblings. They told them they deserved to die. According to the family, other passengers on the train egged on the assaulters, saying maas khate hai, maaro inko (they eat meat, kill them).
Rabiya, the eldest of Saira’s seven children, said the cap was a symbol of identity and dignity for Muslims and stamping on it was the highest form of insult. The siblings were educated in religious scriptures and Junaid was a hafiz, he had recited the entire Quran, which he had learned by heart, during Ramzan.
This story is from the July 21, 2017 edition of FRONTLINE.
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This story is from the July 21, 2017 edition of FRONTLINE.
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