Hindu extremist announces campaign to distribute weapons to 20 million Hindus
As calls for a Muslim genocide grow more popular, Hindu supremacist leader Pravin Togadia announced the distribution of tridents among 20 million Hindus in Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Uttarakhand, the same state where Hindu supremacist leaders in 2021 called on Hindus to kill 200 million Muslims.
In April 2003, Togadia was arrested for distributing tridents to members of the Hindu supremacist organization Bajrang Dal. He was released on bail on the condition that he would not distribute tridents but continues to distribute them.
The growing weaponization of violent Hindu supremacists is a cause of concern for the minority Muslim community, who are being threatened with mass slaughter from extremist groups and BJP leaders alike.
In BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh state, members of Hindu supremacist groups Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal marched on the streets holding swords and canes.
Recently, the Bajrang Dal made brazen calls for violence and vowed to turn India into a “Hindu nation” in a massive rally conducted in BJP-ruled Gujarat state. The rally continued uninterrupted despite the presence of dozens of police officials.
299 Muslim homes demolished in militarized eviction drive in Assam
In a violation of international human rights law, the BJP-ruled Assam government has begun a militarized demolition drive to forcibly evict 299 Muslim homes and raze them to the ground.
200 civic officials, 600 police, and paramilitary members, as well as 43 excavators and 25 tractors, were deployed for the demolition drive.
Victims of the eviction drive say that they were unable to collect their belongings and that their crops were also harmed. The victims have also pointed out that only the Muslim community was targeted, as the 500 Hindu families that lived on the same property were unaffected by the drive.
The All Assam Minority Students’ Union (AAMSU) described the eviction campaign as “inhumane and one-sided.”
This is Assam’s third major eviction effort in a month. In December last year, 5,000 families, mostly Muslim were evicted from their homes.
Since taking office in May 2021, the Hindu supremacist BJP regime in Assam state has carried out eviction drives in several areas of the state.
In September 2021, a violent eviction drive aimed at driving mainly Bengali-speaking Muslims out of their homes left 800 families homeless and 4 religious structures destroyed. Two people were killed by police in the raid, one of them a 12-year-old boy.
After 10 years, charges framed against Hindu supremacists who murdered activist
After 10 long years, a court in Maharashtra state has framed charges against 10 Hindu extremists who were involved in the murder of progressive thinker and left-wing Indian politician Govind Pansare.
In 2015, Pansare, a vocal critic of Hindu extremism, was killed in an attack by two gun-wielding assailants. He died of bullet wounds four days later.
Two people accused of involvement in Pansare’s murder have also been named in another case involving the killing of Narendra Dabholkar, a prominent activist.
Dabholkar was shot dead in Pune on August 20, 2013. Investigating agencies have said that his killing, as well as the murders of Pansare, activist MM Kalburgi in 2015, and journalist Gauri Lankesh in 2017, were all carried out by Hindu supremacists.
