The Murderous Mob Is Out Again!

The Murderous Mob Is Out Again!

The bubble is bursting. While a darker, diabolical, deathly bubble waits at the next crossroad. The pattern is so predictable. Can India stop it this time?

Is the time-tested card of hate politics and violent polarisation floating yet again on the horizon? As the so-called unbreachable fortress of political propaganda and economic power seems to be cracking under the catalytic pressures of shocking and shameful revelations each day, followed by desperate and vindictive actions defying decency, protocol or convention, India and the world is watching this theatre of the absurd unfold.

Indeed, is the season of mob-lynching back?

What began like a jarring orchestra along with the utterly failed dream sequence of ‘acche din’ – is this barbarism once unleashed by the miscellaneous front outfits of the hydra-headed Hindutva octopus — back once again? Now in Haryana, close to the National Capital, thereby sending a sinister signal to the rest of the country!

On February 16, the burnt bodies of two Muslim young men were found in Bhiwani, Haryana. They belonged to Bharatpur in Rajasthan, home of the famous Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary where the Siberian Cranes are refusing to arrive. The entire sequence of barbarism, seems like a full-fledged enactment of mob rule and impunity given to self-styled goons who claim to be gau-rakshaks, cow protectors. Rajasthan police has alleged that the nine accused allegedly kidnapped and assaulted Junaid, 35, and Nasir, 27 on February 15, and took them to at least two police stations in Firozpur Jhirka, but were reportedly turned away by the officers there. Why?

There is no evidence that they were smuggling cows. There is no evidence either that they were thieves or child-lifters. There is no evidence whatsoever which proves that they did anything against the law!

Besides, who gave the moral high ground and legal sanctity to the murderous goons to unleash violence on Indian citizens travelling through Haryana? From which anti-constitutional zone of political legitimacy does this killing machine emerge whereas they can lynch and burn people with no fear whatsoever? Besides, were they burnt alive or was their car set on fire after they were lynched in cold-blood?

Junaid! There was another Junaid, just about 15, who told his mother, “Ammi, main ek din bara aadmi banoonga…” He was lynched in a Mathura-Delhi local train on June 22, 2017, as he went shopping for the festival of Eid. There was apparently an argument for a seat which turned into a communal cauldron. He was lynched to death in front of everybody and his body was thrown out of the train. The chargesheet revealed that the prosecution named 45 witnesses. Key witnesses included Junaid’s brothers and friends — Hashim, Shakir, Moin, Mousim — who were with him in the train.

Four years later, a reporter did a follow-up on a phenomenon which seemed to have spread in other parts of the country, so vicious and vitiated had the atmosphere become. His mother, Saira Bano, still heart-broken, remembered that she was wearing a red saree and there was festivity and happiness in the air. New clothes, sweets, good food, bonhomie and love. And the sweet dreams of a young boy who promised his mother that he wanted to become something big — in a secular, pluralist democracy!

The murder of young Junaid in a train, as the mob-lynching of Akhlaq earlier in Dadri in UP on the pretext that he had beef in his fridge, triggered a wave of ‘Not in My Name’ mass, peaceful protests across the country. There were massive demonstrations all over the world, from London to Boston.

ALSO READ: ‘Lynch Mob – Junaid’s Killers Are Roam Free’

In July, 2019, outside the Lord’s stadium in London, during the World Cup final between the Kiwis and England, suddenly, a van with a huge electronic board arrived. You just could not miss it. The media was soon spreading its message across the globe. The message: Stop mob-lynchings in India!

In Headingly, Leeds, in a crucial match between India and Sri Lanka, a helicopter suddenly appeared with a banner: Help end mob-lynchings in India. The message spread across the social media, TV screens and print media all over the world.

In a Boston rally, an activist said: “Lynching starts at the highest political level and has been used by fascists and supremacists to strike terror into the collective consciousness of a community. There is no end to the mass atrocities that will follow.”

The relentless ritual continued. A five-minute video of Tabrez Ansari in Jharkhand, tied to a tree, and lynched, was so graphic that no human with basic sanity could watch it for a few seconds. But they did make it wilfully and circulated it with pride as they did with similar other cases of cold-blooded murders. The videos were integral in this vicious soap opera of serial killings as public spectacles; as a weapon of destruction; an instrument to legitimize, consolidate and celebrate hate politics, and target the minorities in India.

Not only that, the cops reportedly kept a seriously injured Tabrez in the police station for 48 hours without food, water or medical treatment. By the time he was shifted to the hospital, he was dead. His crime – he was on a holiday from Pune where he was employed; he would have returned to his wife soon after.

An anarchic new normal seems to have poisoned the air in the country during that phase, and Jharkhand, under BJP-rule, then, became yet another lab of hate. This reporter walked inside the by-lanes out there to follow-up on these stories of organised mob-murders done in full public view, and it seemed that there were eyes chasing us in a completely hostile territory, with the police and administration apparently totally biased.

In all the killings, the mob-lynchings would go on in public spaces for a long time, and the cops and administration would simply disappear. Justice would be slow and delayed. Instead, the killers would flaunt their muscle power and political patronage all over the place, even taking out provocative marches outside the homes of the victims, inside their neighbourhood, putting more salt in their simmering wounds. This was a criminal enactment where the State and its machinery seemed in total complicity with the killers.

A Union minister garlanded the killers of Aleemuddin who was lynched in a market place in Ramgarh. A father watched his young son being hanged on a tree even as he took the cattle to a cattle fair in Palamau, with another person, who too was hanged. I met their families, and I have stood under that tree – it is a horror story which keeps coming back like a nightmare.

Two Muslim professionals, back from the Middle East, one, a second-hand car dealer, the other a plumber, living in sprawling homes with their school-going children, were lynched by a crowd near Godda. They were branded as child-lifters! I saw their little children returning from English medium schools in their school uniforms, and I have met their brave and heart-broken wives – what kind of people can inflict such pain on innocent, hard-working citizens of India out of sheer, irrational hate?

Another Muslim man on a cycle was so brutally assaulted that it was difficult to watch the pictures. Being beaten to death for no rhyme or reason in Godda, yet again on the fake charge of being a cow thief.

Indeed, there was always a method in this madness. As if a cold-blooded mastermind and his loyalist lieutenants have been conducting this grotesque show from the shadows. That is why, Bhiwani murders point to a more sinister and diabolical season of hate, perhaps, as a preparation for 2024?

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Vote2019

#MyVote2019 – ‘No Vote For Gau Rakshaks’

Akhir Ali, proprietor, Bharat Sports, Morena Sim Bazaar, Madhya Pradesh

I am 71 now. I have been selling sports goods for more than five decades. We have a shop, Bharat Sports, in Sim Bazaar (Morena, MP) but our main income comes from fairs at small towns. My work therefore requires me to travel to Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. (Narendra) Modi may be a great leader, but his supporters are a violent lot. Buraai bardashth nahi (Modi’s criticism is unacceptable to them).

We keep reading about gau rakshaks ganging up against innocent Muslims. TV channels often report about lynch mobs targeting the minority community. Each time there is a mention of the word Modi, in a train, bus or public place, you will find people intensely defending all his actions. I stay away from such debates or discussions.

This wasn’t the case earlier. At the fairs, or during travel, we openly discussed politics. Today, it is not advisable to disclose your political views, especially if they are not in favour of the Yogi-Modi brand of leadership. ‘Mahaul bahut kharaab hai (Bad times have befallen).’ No matter what hardships you faced during note-bandi (demonetization), you must bear it silently.

In mid-November, 2016, several marriages in our village and nearby area were postponed. For the ones which could not be postponed, families gave written oaths to return money once things normalized. My business suffered. There were no crowds at the fairs where I had brought the stalls. Those were tough times. But no, you cannot say a word against note-bandi. Or you will be called gaddar (traitor).

It is doubly difficult for a Muslim, you understand. My vote is reserved for the Congress party. Only Congress can keep Modi in check. Anywhere the BJP comes to power, it lets loose idle youth branding swords and sticks in rallies. There was one Bajrang Dal procession here too some time back. These men with saffron bandanas kept shouting ugly slogans and looked at us threateningly.

I have advised my family to keep their gaze low whenever they faces such aggression. Good men are in each party. Shivraj Chauhan (former Madhya Pradesh chief minister) is a good man. The former BJP MLA Rustom (Tomar) phool wala is a good man. He even sanctioned Rs 8 lakh for the graveyard in Morena. We never had any complaint from him. But how can we vote for him? His party wily-nily patronises gau rakshaks, after all.

Lynch Mob III

#Lynch Mob III – ‘Abbu’s Murder Haunts Me’


My father drove a Maruti van, transporting coal and other supplies. But days before his brutal murder, he was being watched by these 12 men from the neighbouring villages of Ramgarh (Jharkhand). Not that he had ever talked to them, ‘bas salaam-dua hoti thi inme se do logon ke saath (there would be customary greetings with two of them, named Rohit and Kapil).

Little did we know that they were linked to the Bajrang Dal and looking for a pretext to attack my 45-year-old father. It was a premeditated murder and these 12 had planned every step of the assault. They had planned to get away by claiming that my father was transporting beef. So many vehicles ply the roads, but they had to pick on my father’s only.

All 12 of them belong to different villages, so what brought them together at the same spot on the fateful day? Video clips of the incident showed them attacking and thrashing my father. The court saw that and convicted 11 of them. We were kind of relieved when they were sentenced to life imprisonment for their act. They were identified as Santosh Singh, Deepak Mishra, Vicky Saw, Sikandar Ram, Uttam Ram, Vikram Prasad, Raju Kumar, Rohit Thakur, Chottu Verma, Kapil Thakur and a local BJP leader, Nityanand Mahto.

But within months of the Ramgarh district court’s order, eight of the 11 convicts were given bail by the Ranchi High Court. Their argument in the high court was that they were among the bystanders and not attackers. This was despite video evidence! Later in July, another one of them, Chottu was released on bail too. Now only Deepak Mishra is inside prison.

Chottu can be seen clearly in every clip, wielding a rod and thrashing him. Even witnesses identified and named him. Yet, he was let off. It was a large mob, with many people watching the tamasha, clicking my father’s pictures and recording the assault but not one stepped forward to save his life. The video of my father’s killing is still on YouTube.

A simple Google search with my father’s name brings out those ghastly images. Those images revolve around my eyes every day, not allowing me to sleep peacefully. His killers continue with their lives as usual; only now they are emboldened. They chase other people shouting slogans while policemen stand as mute spectator. It was never like this before in our area.

With six children (three boys and three girls) my father was the sole breadwinner in our family. Now that he’s dead and our van reduced to ashes, we are unable to make ends meet. Ramgarh deputy commissioner Rajeshwari B had promised that one of us (sons of Ansari) will be awarded a sarkari naukri but nothing has materialised as yet.

We plan to move the Supreme Court to challenge their bail. The Muslim community as well as other villagers have been providing us with moral support and funds. We are fighting this together. You know, one of the convicts, Sikandar, who was out on bail, got electrocuted within days of his release from prison. He was the one who had grabbed my father by the collar and dragged him out of the car. Maybe that’s divine justice.

Lynch Mob IV

#Lynch Mob IV – ‘BJP Fanned Vigilantism’


gau rakshak. And I find it painful how this term has come to spawn terror in the minds of common people.

I am aware that many violent vigilantes have declared themselves messiahs of the gau vansh (bovine species) by merely flaunting a saffron scarf and they go about threatening people. They are just gangsters who think they can get away with murder in the name of cow protection. The truth is serving cows is considered equal to serving gods in our religious texts.

And there is no space for violence in this religious service. I have been doing gau seva for over two decades. Our sole aim is to tend sick and old cows. In the times when stray cattle are dying from ingesting polythene and hazardous waste, it is the duty of every human being and animal lover to help the situation.

The vigilante mobs are only harming the cause by getting every gaushala (cow pen) labelled as mobsters den. I had a religious bend of mind from an early age. I devoured many religious texts and it led to my association with Gita Press. In 1998, the trust which runs the press decided to set up Govind Gaushala in Gorakhpur. Always in love with this gentle, bovine animal, I dedicated my life to serving them at the shelter.

Volunteers at Govind Gaushala rescue ailing cows and bring them to the shelter for treatment. We have been quietly doing this work for over 20 years and no one bothered about us much. But then came 2014. The BJP government at the Centre fanned a militant form of Hinduism, where the bhagwadhari (saffron-clad) would lynch people in the name of gau raksha. The result: people who genuinely work for the cause are being looked down upon.

Years of dedication and servitude have been laid to zilch, thanks to certain anti-social elements. Things are still in control in Gorakhpur as these self-styled gau rakshaks haven’t been able to cause much trouble here. We are proud of our work. An ailing cow, on the side of the street, would have gone unnoticed earlier but now people have begun to take notice. More people are reporting sick cows and cases of cattle smuggling to us.

People here know about us and our work and promptly report any untoward incident or a sick cow. Our gaushala has over 450 cows, oxen and calves. Besides the Trust donation, we are getting help from the government of Uttar Pradesh too. My appeal to LokMarg readers is: We have spent all our lives in the service of cows.

Due to some miscreants, please do not label all gau rakshaks as villains. We believe that we serve God by taking care of a sick animal. Violence is not what we preach. And for the self-styled gau rakshaks: Come, join us and you would know what gau raksha is all about.