Six Islamic seminaries, 36 shops demolished in BJP-ruled Gujarat
The Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Gujarat state government used bulldozers to demolish six Islamic seminaries and 36 commercial establishments belonging to Muslims.
The high court in the state had refused to entertain petitions challenging the demolition of the seminaries.
During the Gujarat election campaigns, BJP workers had campaigned for the use of bulldozers to target Muslims while infamous extremist Hindu militant monk and Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath was visiting the state.
They had hailed Adityanath’s demolition drives that targeted Muslim establishments and mosques in Uttar Pradesh state.
In recent weeks, Hindu extremist administrations have targeted Muslim-owned homes, stores, and spaces of worship in demolition drives across India. Hindu supremacist authorities have used flimsy justifications of “illegal encroachment” to target the properties of religious minorities.
Nobel laureate slams India’s new citizenship law as “discriminatory, demeaning”
India-born Nobel Laureate and economist Amartya Sen slammed the Hindu supremacist BJP-backed anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as being “discriminatory” and “demeaning.”
Its implementation would “reduce the role of minorities in the country, while encouraging majoritarian forces,” he said. “It’s very unfortunate for a country like India which is meant to be a secular, egalitarian nation and it [the law] has also been used for particularly unfortunate discriminatory action.”
The discriminatory Islamophobic law CAA fast-tracks citizenship for various religious minorities from India’s neighboring countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, but tellingly excludes Muslims from the list.
Shortly after it was enacted in 2019, massive protests broke out across India, led by Muslims. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, as well as the Uttar Pradesh government of Hindu extremist Yogi Adityanath, responded with a brutal police assault, joined by Hindu extremist mobs.
The CAA has been widely criticized globally, including by US lawmakers. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has called the CAA “religiously discriminatory.”
BJP member among 15 booked for assault on Dalits in Uttar Pradesh
In another caste-based hate crime, fifteen men, including a BJP office-bearer, attacked a Dalit family in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh state’s Etah district.
BJP youth wing office-bearer Chandan Kashyap is among the accused booked by the police.
Rajendra Kumar Valmiki, a Dalit, or lowest-caste Hindu, said two of his relatives who were on a motorcycle were abused and casteist slurs were hurled at them by Kashyap. When they objected, Chandan and 14 others started pelting stones at the Dalit locality.
“A group of men from the upper caste led by the BJP youth wing worker attacked my family members with sticks. Three of my relatives suffered injuries on the head and face. My niece has a fracture on the collarbone…Our lives are in danger,” said Valmiki in the FIR.
Dalits continue to face violence from caste-privileged Hindu extremists across India.
