50 Hindu militants attack Muslims offering Ramadan prayers in private home
A mob of around 50-60 Hindu militants attacked and beat a group of Muslims who were offering Ramadan prayers, known as taraweeh, in Uttarakhand state. The imam leading the prayers was also assaulted.
The Muslim victims reported that they were praying in the private home of a lawyer, Zafar Siddique, when the mob barged in and attacked. The Hindu extremists were part of the violent militant group Bajrang Dal.
Siddique has stated that the police did nothing to prevent or stop the violent attack. He also said that the police had received several complaints from Hindu supremacists over the fact that Muslims were gathering in private for prayers.
In an act of blatant discrimination, the city magistrate sealed off the rooms in the building where the prayers were being offered, a move that Siddique slammed due to it being his private property.
This is the fourth reported attack on a taraweeh gathering since the beginning of Ramadan.
Organization of Islamic Cooperation slams anti-Muslim violence in India
The world’s second-largest intergovernmental organization, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), has slammed India over widespread anti-Muslim violence during the recent Hindu festival Ram Navami, which coincided with Ramadan.
In a statement released on Twitter, the OIC expressed “deep concern” over a number of anti-Muslim hate crimes committed by Hindu supremacist mobs, including the burning of a madrasa and its library in Bihar state.
The OIC General Secretariat further denounced “such provocative acts of violence and vandalism,” which it described as a “vivid manifestation of mounting Islamophobia and systemic targeting of the Muslim community in India.”
India’s Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has lashed out following the statement.
“This is one more example of [the OIC’s] communal mindset and anti-India agenda,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said. “The OIC only does its reputation damage by being consistently manipulated by anti-India forces.”
Global sources from the United Nations to the US State Department have noted India’s rising anti-minority violence and shift towards Hindu supremacist authoritarianism.
West Bengal Chief Minister slams BJP for sparking ongoing communal violence
Violence has continued in West Bengal state after Hindu supremacists carrying out a Ram Navami procession attacked a Muslim-majority area last week, an incident that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has accused the BJP of orchestrating.
“The BJP is behind the violence… They had brought in hired [goons] from other states to unleash violence in Bengal, which is not in our culture,” Banerjee said during a rally. “They are defaming the Hindu religion by pitting one community against another. But rioters have no religion, they are just political goons.”
In West Bengal’s Hooghly district, a railway station was shut down after crude bombs were thrown. Other bouts of communal violence have also been reported in the area.
