Thousand-year-old shrine, mosque demolished in Gujarat, 150 protesters detained
Officials in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Gujarat’s Gir Somnath demolished a shrine that was over a thousand years old, along with a mosque and graveyard, as part of an ongoing “anti-encroachment drive” to facilitate the development of the area around a nearby temple.
The devastating move occurred in spite of a recent Supreme Court order halting all demolitions nationwide unless prior court approval is granted.
In addition to the mosque and graveyard, several houses were also razed. Officials also detained over 150 people who were protesting the demolitions.
Police seize Muslim man’s property after Hindu extremists accuse him of “love jihad”
In BJP-ruled Uttarakhand’s Haldwani, Hindu extremists vandalized the store of a Muslim man, demanding his arrest and the seizure of his property, after accusing him of “love jihad.” The police complied with the extremists’ demands and seized the Muslim man’s store and house.
In a similar incident in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit, a Muslim man was assaulted and paraded through the streets in humiliation by Hindu extremists for spending time with a non-Muslim female friend. After the attack, he was turned over to the police.
Muslim restaurant owners harassed, humiliated over alleged beef sale in Assam
In BJP-ruled Assam’s Morigaon, members of an Assamese ethno-nationalist group accused a roadside restaurant of selling beef, harassed the Muslim owners and forced them to kneel. They also harassed the Muslim owner of a nearby hospital, accusing him of complicity for not intervening in the alleged sale of beef at nearby restaurants.
In Himachal Pradesh’s Chamba, cow vigilantes from the Hindu militant group Bajrang Dal harassed members of a nomadic tribal group over allegations of transporting cattle.
Muslim shopkeepers targeted, harassed for not displaying their religious identity
In Himachal Pradesh’s Una, a mob of Hindu militants from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal targeted a Muslim tailor for giving his shop a Hindu name, claiming that the shop’s name was deliberately “misleading” Hindus.
In a similar incident in Delhi, BJP leader Ravinder Singh Negi harassed a Muslim shopkeeper for not displaying his name on the store. He insisted that in the Hindu-majority area, the shopkeeper should feature his Muslim name.
Human rights activists and opposition politicians have labeled this targeted harassment and forced identification of Muslim vendors “economic apartheid,” mirroring the way Jewish businesses were marked in Nazi Germany.
