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Indian officials have expressed fears of escalating violence following the brutal killing of a Hindu man on Wednesday – and an interesting video of him apparently filmed and posted online by Muslim attackers – Sent a wave of shock through a country that had previously struggled to prevent religious violence.
The killings on the shores of Lake Udaipur are the culmination of a month-long feud that began when Nopur Sharma, a spokeswoman for India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accused the Prophet of marrying underage women. Criticized Muhammad. Sharma’s remarks, which were made during an appearance on a television program on May 26, were condemned by more than a dozen Muslim countries, but Sharma became a champion for many on India’s right wing.
Tele-social media posts supporting Sharma angered two local Muslims, Ghosh Mohammad and Riaz Attari, police officials said on Tuesday when they closed parts of Adipur with curfew and blocked internet in Rajasthan. Blocked access to prevent the spread of protests in the state. Local officials had promised to punish Internet users for sharing videos and photos of the killings, but as of late Tuesday, the videos and photos had been widely circulated, and video footage had appeared several times on television news. Done.
“We have beheaded the tailor,” Attari said in a video. “We live for our God and we will die for him. Listen to me, Narendra Modi. You started this fire. We will keep it.”
Mohammad and Attari have not linked themselves to any extremist group in their videos, but Indian officials have called the killing a terrorist attack and said the men were not acting alone. The Hindustan Times reported that the couple was apprehended at a highway checkpoint late on Tuesday when they allegedly tried to escape from Adipur on a motorcycle and clashed with two militant groups based in Pakistan. Questions are being asked about the alleged relationship.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who belongs to the opposition party in the Indian National Congress, said on Twitter on Wednesday that investigators had gathered information about the killers’ foreign connections but did not give details. The killing was “unimaginable,” he said, while Modi called on the nation to speak out and unite.
“The atmosphere needs to be improved,” Gillette said. “There is an atmosphere of violence all over the country.”
India, with about 5 percent Hindus and 2 percent Muslims, has a long history of religious strife. But over the past year, hate speech and an increase in community unrest – which has so far resulted in relatively few deaths – have raised fears of widespread bloodshed.
Hindu preachers have staged mass protests in which they have publicly demanded the killing of Muslims. Hindus brandished swords outside mosques and encouraged Muslims to throw stones. When the clashes turned into riots, local authorities in several cities called in bulldozers to destroy Muslim homes and shops, a move critics see as a form of mass punishment. The conspiracy theory on Indian social media accuses Indian Muslims of waging a “jihad” against Hindus by beating their wives and spreading coronaviruses.
“We are looking for unending violence if a significant number of people in both communities are convinced that their differences can no longer be resolved politically,” said political commentator and author Debashish Rai Chaudhry. As Muslims become increasingly marginalized in Indian society, he added, there is a risk of “self-extremism”.
On Wednesday, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind, one of India’s leading Islamic organizations, condemned the Taliban killings as “against the law of the land and our religion.” The group’s leader, Alam Hakimuddin Qasimi, called on all Indian citizens to “keep their feelings and keep the peace.”
In the weeks leading up to Teli’s assassination, controversy over Sharma’s remarks about the Prophet Mohammad had provoked widespread condemnation in the Islamic world, prompting the Indian government to apologize, but the incident was blamed on the BJP in India. It also started a complex debate on political identity. And whether there should be restrictions on freedom of expression.
Critics of the BJP say key members of the party are inciting religious violence by repeatedly making provocative statements, and party critics support Sharma’s decision to oust him. But her removal angered many in the BJP’s Hindu nationalist political establishment, who argued that Sharma had only copied what was in the Islamic scriptures and accused her opponents of intolerance.
Tilly, a lawyer for Sharma, wrote about the dispute on social media, which angered his Muslim neighbors, following a police complaint they filed in early June. The complaint, seen by The Washington Post, did not say what Tilly said in his post, which was later deleted, but it prompted local police to arrest him shortly.
Tilly then complained that he was being monitored by men in his neighborhood and received death threats at the post, according to a document he handed over to police. The tailor had closed his business for several days until the opening this week.
On Tuesday, Mohammad and Attari went to the oil shop, posing as customers before attacking him, police said. According to police, he was stabbed several times and stabbed several times in the neck but was not beheaded.
Authorities banned large gatherings in Rajasthan on Wednesday, but small protests organized by extremist Hindu groups began across the country.
“There is no chaos, chaos and rule of law,” said Apurvanand, a Delhi University professor who is known by one name. “If we don’t make an overall effort and lower the temperature, we’re heading for disaster, or already exist.”
Anant Gupta contributed to this report.
