Indian Deep State Attempts Against Sikh Community By Sajjad Shaukat JR201S68

Indian Deep State Attempts Against Sikh Community By Sajjad Shaukat JR201S68

Indian deep state seems to be scared of increasing activities of Sikhs community. To neutralize the growing activities of the community, an orchestrated campaign is under way to term these activities as Pakistan sponsored. Recently, Chief Minister of Indian Punjab Capt (R) Amarinder Singh has alleged that Pakistan dropped weapons inside Indian Punjab through drones for Sikh terror groups, operating in Indian Punjab. Earlier, Indian media in coalition with the Indian deep state had been raising doubts and questions over “Kartarpur Corridor” also by creating hurdles on “Karatarpur Corridor” in the similar vein.

In another attempt, New Delhi exploited the issue and statement of an ex-Sikh leader namely Baldev Kumar to the optimum to malign Islamabad.  Baldev Kumar was acquitted in the murder case of local Sikh leader namely Soran Singh, but the family of the victim still accuses him as murderer. Baldev Kumar was enticed by Indian intelligence agencies to give statement against Pakistan. Tilak Kumar (brother of Baldev Kumar) during a press conference in Swat also refuted allegations, leveled by his brother and felt that Baldev Kumar was coerced by Indian authorities to issue statements, implicating Pakistan.

In fact, the allegations seem part of a grand plan of Indian deep state which has also tried to divert attention from India’s’ moves and reaction of the world leaders and media from the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), as now, New Delhi is expanding the sinister scheme to Punjab to neutralize Sikh resistance and worldwide Sikh activities exposing/negating India.

In this regard, Indian extremist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government ended special status of the Jummu and Kashmir on August 5, this year, while scrapping articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution in a malevolent attempt to turn Muslim majority into minority in the Indian Held Kashmir. Indian forces have continued lockdown and curfew in the IOK and also martyred more than 100 individuals and injured more than 500 persons through pallet-guns and various kinds of torture. More than 15000 people have been arrested and many are missing. Despite the deployment of 900,000 troops and intensification of firing by the Indian forces in wake of shortage of foods and even medicines for the patients, innocent Kashmiris are still violating the curfew by protesting against Indian illegal actions. And Indian fanatic rulers are also escalating tensions with Pakistan so as to divert attention from the drastic situation of the IOK, and have continued shelling inside Pakistani side of Kashmir. In order to conceal India’s state terrorism, New Delhi has not allowed journalists to enter the Indian Held Kashmir which has been cut off from the world, as private mobile networks, internet services and telephone landlines cut.

In the aftermath of the August 5 developments, Sikhs have also shown solidarity with the Kashmiri people by participation in the processions and protest rallies, conducted in Pakistan and other Western countries.

It is notable that an intellectual group of Sikh resistance against India namely “Sikh For Justice’s (SFJ)” is organising Referendum 2020 campaign to inform the world about highhandedness of Hindus against Sikh community. India has also declared SFJ legal advisor Gurpatwant Singh Pannun as Pakistani-backed terrorist. To down play the Sikh activism, Indian officials and media continually harps smear campaigns against “Referendum 2020 campaign” by projecting it as a “pro-Pakistan” movement, but in reality, it is an indigenous pro-Sikh movement.

BJP legislatures have also passed a draconian law in shape of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) to gag any dissenting voice, especially that of the Sikhs. As per report of the “Economic Times”, Indian media outlet quoted an unnamed senior Home Ministry official as saying that “those states which have a sizeable Sikh population and where the organisations like SFJ can play foul and try to brainwash Sikh community in favor of the Khalistan movement will be given focus through UAPA”. This new found approach unquestionably contradicts India’s claims of being the self-professed world’s largest democracy and proves that it’s becoming more of a prison of nations. Despite decades of continued protests, Sikhs are still labeled Hindus under article 25(2) (b) in the Indian constitution. To further demoralize them and remind them of their subjugation, the Sikhs in the Indian state are forced to get married under the Hindu marriage act.

It is mentionable that ‘Operation Blue Star’ was an Indian military operation which occurred between 3–8 June 1984, ordered by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to control over the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) complex, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs in Amritsar, Punjab, and to arrest Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed followers from the complex buildings. Bhindranwale had earlier taken residence in Harmandir Sahib and made it his headquarters in April 1980. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was the only leader who had boldly been fighting for the genuine rights of the Sikhs.

Indian Army led by General Kuldip Singh Brar, supported by troops and armoured vehicles broke all records of the state terrorism and extra-judicial killings through that barbaric operation.

At that time, there were only 251 Sikhs inside the complex to protect the Harmandir Sahib, and to resist the well-trained Indian army. In those days, majority of the Sikhs were coming to the temple-complex to celebrate Martyr Day of Guru Arjan Dev Ji.

On June 6, when all Sikh fighters were martyred along with Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Indian troops entered the temple-complex with their shoes by deliberately ignoring the holiness of the place, showing utter indecency. When the Indian Army felt that only 251 men had prevented them from entering the Harmandir Sahib for so many days, they started killing innocent Sikhs who had come there to visit the temple.

In this connection, in their book, “The Sikh Struggle”, Ramnarain Kumar and George Sieberer writes, “The army killed every Sikh who could be found inside the temple-complex. They were hauled out of rooms, brought to corridors on the circumference of the temple and with their hands tied behind their back, were shot in cold blood. Among the victims were many old men, women and children.” However, all visitors were locked up in rooms for two days without any food, water, or electricity and were starved to death. Besides, the Harmandir Sahib remained under the army control for many months.”

The brutality of the ‘Operation Blue Star’ was not confined to the Harmandir Sahib. Indian armed forces simultaneously attacked 40 other historical gurdwaras all over East Punjab.

When Sikhs in other states came to know about the desecration of the Harmandir Sahib and massacre of their brethren, they quickly left for Punjab. New Delhi tried to stop them before they could reach Punjab. Many Sikhs were assassinated on the way and many others were arrested.

According to an estimate, about 50,000 Sikhs were killed within a few days. The whole Amritsar city was sealed and was burnt. A number of tourists either were murdered or arrested. Shops belonging to Sikhs were looted and their houses were set ablaze by Hindu mobs. In most of the cases, Sikh women were molested and some persons of their community were also burnt.

In the same year of November, two dedicated Sikhs named Beant Singh and Satwant Singh who were posted at Premier Indira Gandhi’s residence in New Delhi, assassinated her. Then Hindu riots erupted in the capital and other cities in which more than 15,000 Sikhs were murdered in broad daylight by the supporters of Indira Gandhi, while police watched silently so as to provide the Hindus with free hand to massacre Sikhs.

Nevertheless, the attack on the Harmandir Sahib and genocide of Sikhs accelerated the liberation movement for Khalistan as Bhindrenwale became a folk hero.

Meanwhile, after ‘Operation Blue Star’ and the Sikh genocide, Sikhs’ struggle for independence continued, but the Indian government made every effort to crush the same with the state machinery. To maintain its control over the Harmandir Sahib, another attack was launched on the Temple in 1987, called ‘Operation Black Thunder’.  

According to a report, many trucks were loaded with dead bodies and all were burned with kerosene oil. Afterwards, ‘Operation Woodrose’ and ‘Operation Black Thunder-II’ were conducted against the Sikh community, which also assassinated many of them extra-judicially.

After these barbaric operations, Sikhs organised themselves into an armed power in order to fight the Indian state terrorism. Many Sikhs left India to escape religious persecution. Sikhs have spread out all over the world to keep the movement of Khalistan alive. In this regard, their struggle is still going on.

In this context, Dr. Sangat Singh writes in his book, “The Sikhs in History”, remarks, “The Indian government has killed over 1 million to 1.2 million Sikhs since 1947. The only way to stop this state terrorism is to create a Khalistan state, where Sikhs and other religious people can enjoy their freedom.”

Notably, many Sikh victim families are still demanding and waiting for justice and relief as Indian Supreme court/commissions are still resorting to cosmetic hearings/proceedings of the cases filed by Sikh people in the same regard. 

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com

Behind Indian Anti-Pakistan Moves? By Sajjad Shaukat JR200SS67

Behind Indian Anti-Pakistan Moves?  By Sajjad Shaukat JR200SS67

More than 70 days have been passed. But, India has continued military clampdown and strict communications blackout in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) by continuing curfew. Tensions between India and Pakistan accelerated on August 5, this year, when New Delhi unilaterally annexed the IOK, revoking articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution which gave a special status to that region. Besides, from time to time, Indian extremist rulers are also escalating tensions with Pakistan by intensifying shelling inside Pakistani side of Kashmir.

In this regard, various anti-Pakistan moves are part of the Indian nefarious designs not only to divert attention from domestic issues, but also to destabilize Pakistan.

In this respect, some countries France, UK and especially India have been calling on Pakistan to take action against the terror groups to avoid ‘Dark Gray’ list status of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), they have long failed to do. Particularly, Indian media spreads disinformation that Pakistan may be put on ‘Dark Grey’ list, as Islamabad passed only 6 out of 27 items of FATF.

In fact, the Pakistani delegation is confident to avoid any new action by FATF, as it has support from China, Malaysia and Turkey. So far, even countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Saudi Arabia have supported Pakistan. As per official sources, Pakistan should be excluded from grey list and put into green or white list, as Islamabad has made impressive progress on at least 20 out of 27 of FATF action plan points. However, the official sources say that the FATF might maintain Pakistan’s grey-list status for an extended period of 6 to 12 months, but in such a scenario, there will be no new action plan. New Delhi is fuelling all false news as it has nothing to lose in the deal.

On the other side, Indian military and police continues arrests and detentions of the innocent Kashmiris. In this context, in the recent past, many women protesters, including the daughter and the sister of the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and wife of former Kashmir Chief Justice were detained in Srinagar during demonstrations against ending the state’s special status. The protesters included prominent women activists and leading academicians.

While, Indian extremist government led by the fanatic Prime Minister Narendra Modi is turning a blind eye to sane voices, emerging from inside India. Even, pro-India Kashmiri politicians are not being spared. The feel of betrayal by India is speedily bringing sympathy for Pakistan’s narrative in local Kashmiris. This struggle of Kashmiris is totally indigenous and fuelled by years of suppression by India. The resistance is gradually transforming in to a leader less civil disobedience which waits appropriate moment to rise against Indian aggression. Recent case of Apples being inscribed with pro-Pakistan and pro-Imran Khan slogans reflect the ground reality.

In this connection, Prominent Indian Muslim politician Asaduddin Owaisi has said Bharat is “not a Hindu Rashtra” and they will also not let it become so. His comments came after the extremist RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] chief Mohan Bhagwat recently stated that the Sangh is firm on its vision that “Bharat is a Hindu Rashtra”.

It is notable that secularism and world’s largest democracy were the two principle reasons India was respected around the world despite the fact that both slogans were not prevalent in their essence. Nevertheless, the slogans did served New Delhi well, till BJP assumed power few years back. BJP, the political face of RSS has gradually engulfed India and is tightening grip over the social mindset like an angry “Octopus”. The tolerance levels in Indian society are rapidly diminishing and Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) stands order of the day. Soon the trauma being faced by Kashmiris shall fall upon other minorities too. This is the fear which made Chief of Akal Takht, highest temporal seat of the Sikh community, who called for a ban on the RSS, saying that allowing it to operate freely would only “divide” the nation.

It is mentionable that in the Indian general elections of 2019, BJP and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won huge majority in the Lok Sabha, with the BJP sweeping up 303 seats on its own—21 seats more than it won in the 2014 elections. Across most of North and Central India, BJP candidates also won with bigger vote shares and wider victory margins than in 2014. Hindu majority was mobilized on ‘hate Muslim’ slogans and ‘anti-Pakistan’ jargons, while the incessant and unjust Indian propaganda against the Muslims and Pakistan was beyond anybody’s cognition, which still keeps on going. Indian Prime Minister Modi’s extremist party BJP had also got a land sliding triumph in the Indian elections 2014 on the basis of anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan slogans.

Since the leader of the ruling party BJP Modi became Prime Minister of India, various developments like unprecedented rise of Hindu extremism, persecution of minorities even of lower cast-Hindus, forced conversions of other religious minorities into Hindus, ban on beef and cow slaughter, inclusion of Hindu religious books in curriculum, creation of war-like situation with Pakistan etc. clearly show that encouraged by the Hindu fundamentalist outfits such as BJP, RSS VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena, including other similar parties have been promoting religious and ethnic chauvinism in India by propagating ideology of Hindutva. Particularly, assaults on Christians and Muslims, including their places of worships and property have been accelerated by the fanatic Hindu mobs.

Notably, in the aftermath of the elections 2019, news reports have highlighted different cases in which Dalits and especially Muslims were violently targeted for reasons as varied as allegedly possessing beef, protesting against caste-based discrimination or simply being Muslim. Particularly, various incidents of arrests, violent assaults and killings of the Muslims, including the persons of other religious communities by the Hindus have been recorded. Surprisingly, Indian police is also being used by the Indian rulers in this regard.

In the recent past, twelve people, including a minor, were arrested in Kerala for uploading and downloading videos and photographs related to child pornography. The raids, titled ‘Operation P-Hunt 3’, were conducted across the state and in 21 places from where police seized mobile phones, modems, hard disks, memory cards, laptops and desktops with pornographic videos and pictures of children. As many as 20 cases have been registered in the third round of raids. During the first two rounds of raids, 14 people were arrested (21 cases registered) in April and 12 men were held (16 cases filed) in June, 2019.

India has been declared most unsafe place for women by Thomas Reuters Foundation in a global survey. However, this trend is not new and despite the fact that rape is spread all over the country, it is also being used as weapon by Indian Police/Law-Enforcement Agencies and the powerful people. Hence, India is often mocked on social media by the title “Rapistan”, “GayHind” and “Rape Capital” of the world. This linked with intolerance existing in society is swiftly decaying Indian social fiber.

It is of particular attention that during an interview to CNN News 18, Taliban’s political spokesman Suhail Shaheen said that there is no military solution to the issue of Afghanistan. He further stated that the group was ready to talk to all Afghan sides—neighbours, including the Afghan government after signing a peace deal with the US.

New Delhi is feeling the pinch of Afghan peace deal which is on the cards. Because, the peace deal is likely to render Indian investments in Afghan intelligence setups, media incursions and proxy support against Pakistan ineffective. It will suit India, if Afghanistan does not move towards peace and keeps simmering. So, Taliban need to realize that a state that has sponsored, trained and propagated all anti-Taliban and anti-Pakistan elements such as Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), ISIS (Daesh) Afghanistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Afghanistan’s intelligence agency National Directorate of Security (NDS) to destabilize both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In order to obtain sinister designs, Indian secret agency RAW and NDS are in connivance and are assisting these outfits.

After reverses in Afghanistan and expected peace deal between the US and Taliban, PTM-anti-Pakistan group’s leadership will find their space squeezed on both sides of Pak-Afghan border. RAW and NDS are trying gimmicks and tricks in this losing battle and resurrection of PTM bogie is last ditch effort to save face.

However, in collaboration, RAW, NDS, TTP, Daesh and PTM are laying another ploy to revive a diminishing role. Besides, Taliban are working for an Islamic system, Modi government is leading anti-Muslim campaign within India. This hypocrisy is itself indicator of foul play which must not go unnoticed.

It is also of particular attention that a majority of the world’s leaders, Western media and human rights groups have been giving much coverage to India’s lockdown and Modi’s illegitimate moves by pointing out the sufferings of the Kashmiris. But, it is regrettable that instead of indicating solidarity with the plight of the Kashmir people to the maximum and showing selfless unity with the armed forces in wake of Indian war-like threat, the leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman who has support of Pakistan People’s Party, the Muslim League-Nawaz and some religious parties has started “Azadi March” (Freedom March) on October 27, this year. The workers of JUI-F are expected to converge on the capital Islamabad and will hold their sit-in to dislodge the federal government.

Nonetheless, anti-Pakistan moves of the PM Modi are part of a deliberate scheme against the Kashmiris, Muslims and Afghans in order to weaken these entities.

Book Review: Invisible Balance of Power By Ian Greenhalgh (JR199IG01)

Book Review: Invisible Balance of Power By Ian Greenhalgh (JR199IG01)

The world underwent a seismic change on September 11th, 2001 when the biggest, most blatant false flag terror even yet seen took place–the attack on the World Trade Centre in NYC and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The official narrative blamed Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda Islamic terrorist group, a complete fabrication that has had far-reaching consequences.

           

The creation of the Islamic terrorist bogeyman began long before 9-11, the stereotypical fanatic menacingly waving AK47s and RPGs while screaming incoherently about Allah has been a mass media meme for decades–the 1985 Hollywood blockbuster Back To The Future featured a gang of Libyan terrorists, a decade later the James Cameron-Arnold Schwarzenegger movie True Lies had a plot revolving around Islamic terrorists and stolen nuclear weapons.

           

Clearly, powerful, shadowy figures in the West have sought to inculcate the minds of the public with the notion that Islamic terror was the new threat to peace and prosperity, to the Western, capitalistic way of life. They have used the mass media to drive this train of thought and sadly, they have been all too successful. A string of further false flag terror events blamed on Islamic fanatics has played out in countries such as Great Britain, France and Germany, the Western public has been sold on the idea that Islamic fundamentalists are a clear and present danger.

It is impossible to gain any meaningful insight into the true nature of these events and the forces driving them from the Western media, both the mainstream and ‘alternative’ forms have been utterly corrupted and co-opted. However, there are still those who seek to subvert the Western narrative and publish the truth about the geopolitics and Machiavellian machinations behind the events of the post 9-11 world.

One such figure is Pakistani author Sajjad Shaukat, in his book, Invisible Balance of Power, first published in 2005 and now republished fourth time in a revised edition, Shaukat examines the phenomena of terrorism and explains how there are both state and non-state actors behind the scenes. An example of the former would be the United States, of the latter, Al-Qaeda is the prime example. The book is packed with solid research and delves far deeper into this murky world than any Western author dares tread.

Shaukat is remarkably even-handed, his analyses notably free of prejudice as he compares and contrasts the tactics and techniques employed by both sides in the so-called ‘War On Terror’. The book contains detailed analysis of Al-Qaeda’s methods–the beheadings, the targetted assassinations, the hostage taking, the suicide bombings and the ambush attacks using improvised explosive devices. However, it also covers the methods used by the United States and it’s allies–the CIA black site prisons and their torture cells, the drone strikes, the kidnappings, the use of private military companies and their mercenaries.

Through painstaking research and in-depth analysis, Shaukat makes a compelling case that both sides in the War On Terror have employed the most cruel and ruthless terroristic methods and are responsible for the deaths of countless innocent civilians, the great majority of them citizens of Islamic countries.

The author goes further by placing this insightful analysis of the War On Terror against the backdrop of the global financial, social and political situation and giving a prescient viewpoint on how international finance and politics have been and will continue to be influenced by the perpetual nature of the wars involving both sides of the War on Terror; how social and economic instability has been created. One might consider this viewpoint to be almost clairvoyant, given recent unrest in France by the Gilets Jaunes and the ongoing violence in Afghanistan, to name just two examples.

Besides, author’s future assessments such as failure of the power factor or role force by the US-led countries in this ‘different war’ against the non-sovereign entities, prolonged war on terror, entanglement of the US/NATO countries in Afghanistan, increase in the cost of war, internal crises inside America, loss of America’s leverage of bargaining even on the small countries, economic instability in the world, state terrorism, resulting into more terrorism by the non-state actors as noted in case of Indian-Israeli brutal tactics on the Kashmiris and Palestinians, war in Syria, promotion of sectarian divide in the Islamic countries on the basis of Shia and Sunni, rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, war-like situation between Syria and Israel, between Iran and Israel, between India and Pakistan, rise of Russia and China-their collective efforts for moving the world to the multi-polar system etc. proved true.

Shaukat also presents the reader with a set of proposals for resolving this mess, including reconciliation of warring parties and reform of the UN to empower the less powerful, less developed nations, thus leaving the reader with a sense of hope that this global conflict can be resolved. Even if you do not agree with all of his analyses, you will come away from reading this book armed with a far deeper and more realistic understanding of the post 9-11 world than you could ever hope to garner from consumption of the Western media and that makes it compelling reading for all those who wish to develop a greater, more accurate knowledge of this world we live in.

About Ian Greenhalgh

Ian Greenhalgh is a British photographer, writer and historian with a particular interest in military history and the real causes of conflicts. His studies in history and background in the media industry have given him a keen insight into the use of mass media as a creator of conflict in the modern world. His favored areas of study include state sponsored terrorism, media manufactured reality and the role of intelligence services in manipulation of populations and the perception of events.

Kashmir Struggle News Update (weekly) JR 198 Volume II

THIS PAGE WILL UPDATE , ON A WEEKLY BASIS NEW RELATED TO THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM BY THE KASHMIRI PEOPLE.. Kindly refer to https://javedrashid.blogspot.com/2018/12/kashmir-struggle-news-weekly-update.html (Kashmir Struggle News (weekly)  Update  (JR107) for previous updates . 

Kindly respond with comments or news that you wish included in next weeks update at: jarad_us@yahoo.com

                                         

Monthly update: Muslims in India JR197

Monthly update: Muslims in India

This page will update the plight of Muslims (excluding Kashmir which is dealt  elsewhere) living in India on a monthly basis

Monthly update  10:June 2020 : Muslims in India

This page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India

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1.     Indian doctor: Jun., 3, 2030: Indian Muslims for Progress and Reform (IMPAR) wrote a letter to Union Health Minister Dr. Harshvardhan demanding action against the doctor who allegedly claimed that Tablighis are ‘terrorists’. https://www.siasat.com/impar-demands-action-against-doctor-who-calls-tablighis-terrorists-1897006/ 

2.     Safoora Zargar: Jun., 5, 2020: Delhi’s Patiala house court on Thursday denied bail to 27-year-old Safoora Zargar. The research scholar from Jamia Millia Islamia is currently in judicial custody in connection with her alleged role in the Delhi riots conspiracy case, which is being investigated by the Delhi Police’s Special Cell. While dismissing the bail petition, Judge Dharmendra Rana said: “When you choose to play with embers, you cannot blame the wind to have carried the spark a bit too far and spread the fire. The acts and inflammatory speeches of the co-conspirators are admissible u/s 10 of the Indian Evidence even against the applicant/accused.” While making a case for bail, her counsels Ritesh Dhar Dubey and Trideep Pais told the court that the investigating agency was creating a false narrative to implicate innocent students who do not approve of the government’s policies. They also submitted that the prosecution’s charge that Zargar delivered an inflammatory speech on February 23, 2020, at Chand Bagh was inaccurate. Her lawyers claimed that she had visited Chand Bagh for a short while on that day but that was before the violence had started. They also told the court that she had delivered a speech in Khureji on February 23, but it wasn’t inflammatory or provocative in any manner.  While making its arguments against granting of bail, the prosecution submitted a seizure memo relating to FIR 101/2020 registered by the Khajoori Khas Police Station. The seizures in FIR 101/2020 of Police Station Khajuri Khas include materials like stones, bricks, crates of glass bottles, and 3 sling shots that were reportedly found in front of suspended Aam Aadmi Party leader Tahir Hussain’s house. The reference to evidence collected in another case, pertaining to another FIR, during Zargar’s bail hearing came as a surprise, given that the student was not arrested in FIR 101/2020 but 59/2020.  The judge, while pronouncing his order, also referred to statements made by eye witnesses and a WhatsApp chat that had been placed on record. The judge held that “there is prima facie evidence to show that there was a conspiracy to at least block the roads (chakka jam).”“As per the provisions of sections 339 of the Indian Penal Code, causing wrongful restrain to even a single individual is a penal offence. Section 141 clause 3 provides that any assembly of five or more persons is designated as ‘unlawful’, if its common object is to commit any offence.” The judge also refused to entertain the defence counsel’s argument that Safoora was liable only for her individual acts and speeches and the acts of other members of the group could not be read against her. The judge held,“In my considered opinion, if there is prima facie evidence of existence of a conspiracy, the evidence of acts and statements made by one of the conspirators in furtherance of the common object is admissible against all…Therefore mere absence at the spot or absence of any overt act would not help the cause of the applicant/accused.” Zargar’s lawyers also appealed for bail on humanitarian grounds, given that she is 21 weeks pregnant and reportedly suffering from Poly Cystic Ovarian Disorder. They told the court that her condition had become all the more vulnerable because of the COVID-19 crisis and pointed out that inmates in all three of Delhi’s jails had contracted the coronavirus infection. While dismissing her bail plea, the judge asked the concerned jail superintendent to provide adequate medical aid and assistance to the accused.  https://thewire.in/law/safoora-zargar-denied-bail

3.     Blue Star: Jun., 10, 2020: Eight-day long Operation Blue Star (OBS) still haunts the Sikh community although 36 years have passed. For those who lived through Operation Blue Star (OBS), the situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir today brings back vivid memories of what they went through in 1984. OBS was an official beginning of a systematic purge of the Sikhs community in India. Over 100,000 Sikhs (mostly youth) were killed in the next four years (till 1988) while over 25,000 victims were left crippled for the whole of their lives. Over 20,000 Sikh families migrated out of India (mostly in Canada, United States, United Kingdom) after this event as they felt India does not own them and they were alien in their land people in Amritsar could not have imagined in their wildest dreams in mid-May .1984 that their beloved Golden Temple would be fired upon by their own Army.The OBS assault started on June 1, 1984, and continued till the night of June 8. Indian government came out a cooked, fictional, concocted and fabricated ‘White Paper’ on Operation Blue Star, but no one believed it. Then as now, the official version projected the government’s decision as absolutely justified, given the fact that militant leader JS Bhindranwale had dug in his heels inside the Golden Temple with his heavily armed followers. Then as now, came the whitewash of the terrible fallout. Desperate to restore the Akal Takht, reduced to rubble by tank fire, the Centre ultimately found a little-known Nihang to undertake ‘kar seva’, the voluntary labour with which Sikhs build their gurdwaras. “Stories coming out from Punjab (Indian Punjab) of Army excesses resulted in anarchy within the Indian Army and Punjab Police. As many as 2,800 Sikh soldiers deserting their regiments. Three officers were shot by deserters; one, Brig SC Puri, died. Many deserters were jailed, court-martialed, and dismissed. The 9th battalion of the Sikh Regiment, the first to react, was never raised again,” said Jyoti Punwani in her article published on August 2, 2019, in New Indian Express under the .One of the most important events related to OBS is the “Mutiny of 9th battalion of the Sikh Regiment” that started from Bihar and spread as far as Rajasthan and over 2600 Sikh soldiers were killed by Indian Police and Army after this mutiny and their bodies were not handed over to their relatives. One serving Brigadier Brig Puri was shot dead at brigade headquarters in Ramgarh in Bihar by Sikh soldiers. Sikh Soldiers were under constant surveillance in the Indian Air Force, Army, and Indian Navy for years to come after this incident. Operation Blue Star was planned by RAW to purge the rising demand of the Khalistan movement. It was planned well before it started to purge the rising demand of the Khalistan movement. The Khalistan movement was a politico-religious Sikh nationalist movement which aimed at creating an independent state for Sikhs inside the current North-Western Republic of India. Even though the Khalistan movement started in the early 1940s and 1950s, it gained popularity in 1970s when former East Pakistan became “Bangladesh”. Sikhs understood that India helped Bangalis to form their separate country on the bases of language, culture, ethnicity then why Sikh should not get their own separate country on the same basis  Her murder was instantly followed by Anti-Sikh riots spread all over India, killing more than 8,000 Sikhs in New Delhi alone in four days, and an estimated 20,000 or more Sikhs were killed in 40 cities across India. At least 50,000 Sikh families were displaced and their belongings, homes, shops, transport, offices, and businesses were looted and burnt down. Like recent Anti-Muslim Delhi Riots which took place in February 2020, Hindus attacked Sikhs with iron rods, knives, clubs, and combustible material (including kerosene and petrol). They entered Sikh neighbourhoods, killing Sikhs indiscriminately and destroying shops and houses.Armed mobs stopped buses and trains in and near Delhi, pulling off Sikh passengers for lynching; some were burnt alive. Others were dragged from their homes and hacked to death, and Sikh women were reportedly gang-raped and acid was thrown on them. Anti-Sikhs Riots continued for four days (like recent Anti-Muslims riots in Delhi) with the complete support of Police and paramilitary forces all over India. The next two years for Sikh community were very punitive and their economic survival was at stake. Hindu community did not forgive them and caused all kinds of social and economic boycotts of the Sikh community. The first Operation Black Thunder took place on April 30, 1986, and was carried out by Black Cat commandos of National Security Guards (NSG) to remove Sikh militants from the Golden Temple. Second Operation Black Thunder began on May 9, 1988, and both operations cost disappearance of over 7,000 young Sikhs and killing of over 3,500 undocumented youth from Indian Punjab. Indian Army used tanks, artillery, helicopters, and armored vehicles in this Operation. Retired Sikh bureaucrats claimed that Intelligence Units working in universities all over India were keeping eyes on Sikh students almost two years before Operation Blue Star and their (students) data had been compiled with details. Indian Army simultaneously attacked over 45 gurdwaras in Punjab and did massacre all over Punjab which was not confined only to Amritsar. Over 50,000 Sikhs were killed within the first three weeks of Operation and businesses and shops belonging to Sikhs were looted by Indian Army and Hindu mobs. Thousands of Sikh girls and women were raped by soldiers of the Indian Army and Hindu Policemen who were sent from Delhi. It is pertinent to mention that pro-Hindu leaders including LK Advani, Vajpayee demanded Army action against Sikhs in 1984 and led the anti-Sikh Movement. Economic cost and social deprivation faced by Sikh Community after OBS, Anti Sikh Riots, and Operation Black Thunder (Part I and II) are still undocumented and need detailed research work. https://dnd.com.pk/from-operation-blue-star-to-operation-black-thunder/190989

4.     Visa denial: Jun., 12, 2020: India has turned down a travel request for members of a US government panel seeking to review its religious freedom, saying foreign agencies had no standing to assess the constitutional rights of citizens. The visa snub to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on Wednesday came as the US Congress released its own religious freedom report while a top Trump administration official said he was "very concerned" about the South Asian country's situation US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday released a new 2019 International Religious Freedom Report in Washington, DC. The report, mandated by the US Congress, documents major instances of violations of religious freedom across the world. Referring to India, the report highlighted the revocation of Indian-administered Kashmir's autonomy by the Modi government in August, the passage of the CAA in December, and attacks by Hindu vigilante groups on Muslims and Dalits (community once referred to as "untouchables") over the cow, an animal considered sacred by Hindus."Mob attacks by violent Hindu groups against minority communities, including Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumours that victims had traded or killed cows for beef," said the report, adding that charges were often filed by the police against the victims of mob violence. Hours after the release, Samuel Brownback, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom in the Trump administration, said the "trend lines [on religious freedom] have been troubling" in India, according to a report by the Press Trust of India on Wednesday."We do remain very concerned about what's taking place in India. It's historically just been a very tolerant, respectful country of religions, of all religions," Brownback said during a phone call with journalists on Wednesday."It really needs a lot more effort on this topic in India, and my concern is, too, that if those efforts are not put forward, you're going to see a growth in violence and increased difficulty within the society writ large." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/india-denies-visas-panel-religious-freedom-200611070153569.html

5.     US Senator: Jun., 13, 2020: The US senator, Edward John Markey, has urged the State Department to impress upon the Indian government to lift restrictions on the Internet in occupied Kashmir in view of the Coronavirus pandemic. Edward John Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, in a letter addressed to State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, said although video conferencing is helping people around the world cope with isolation during lockdowns, a lack of access to this technology puts further strain on millions of Kashmiris, or nearly half of all adults, who have some form of mental illness after decades of conflict  Besides Kashmir, the senator also talks about the rise in anti-Muslim violence, human rights and press freedom concerns. He says the “failure to address” these issues seem to contradict the pluralistic and democratic principles of India.“I urge the State Department to take steps to act on the recommendations related to India in the Annual Report of the USCIRF,” Senator Markey said. He also appealed to his government to follow the “the report’s recommendations to strengthen engagement with communities affected by discrimination and to designate India as a country of particular concern for engaging in and tolerating religious freedom violations”. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/06/12/press-india-to-lift-internet-restrictions-in-iok-us-state-department-urged/

6.     Zargar : Jun., 14, 2020: The Center for Human Rights at the American Bar Association (ABA) has said in a report that Safoora Zargar’s detention is not in compliance with the international treaties to which India is a state party. The ABA is one of the oldest and largest associations of lawyers and law students in the United States. The Center specifically stated that denial of bail to Zargar is not in consonance with the provisions of International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which permit pre-trial detention only for narrow purposes such as to “prevent flight, interference with evidence, or the recurrence of the crime”. It further added that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has interpreted the ICCPR to hold that “any detention must be exceptional and of short duration and a release may be accompanied by measures intended only to ensure representation of the defendant in judicial proceedings”.The Center also said that the lack of evidence in the case should have made the Court consider alternatives other than detaining Zargar. “Given the lack of evidence in the FIR linking Ms. Zargar to acts of violence, it is unclear why alternatives to pre-trial detention were not considered adequate by the court in this case,” it noted. The report by the Center also expressed concern regarding Zargar’s vulnerability as a pregnant woman and a high blood pressure patient.  “Regardless of whether Ms. Zargar’s detention was properly justified under normal circumstances, it is likely unreasonable in light of her pregnancy and the risk of contracting the novel coronavirus. The United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-Custodial Measures for Women Offenders (also known as the Bangkok Rules) conclude that non-custodial means should be preferred for pregnant women during the pre-trial phase wherever that is possible or appropriate”. The Center highlighted that Zargar was at risk of exposure to COVID-19 in Tihar jail, which is overcrowded, and assistant superintendent of the jail has tested positive for COVID-19.  The Center urges the Court to uphold India’s moral and legal obligations given the pandemic and order the immediate release of Mrs. Zargar.”  https://thewire.in/rights/safoora-zargar-american-bar-association

7.     Hindu hatred for Muslims: Jun., 15, 2020: On 5 June, Payal Rohatgi, the Indian TV actor who identifies herself as a "proud Hindu”, shared a video in which Safoora Zargar — the Jamia Millia Islamia student currently in jail on charges of conspiracy to instigate the February riots in New Delhi — was seen delivering a fiery speech during a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC). "Ram Ram ji, maybe she had sex after this video to remove her frustration and she got pregnant," tweeted Rohatgi, adding, "#SafooraZargar is a terrorist." In another tweet, she asked: "Were medical shops not providing condoms?" "Oops for Muslim women there is no concept of condom, so when they produce kids like a dozen [sic], what's the problem if one is born in jail, but this k***ya will do victim drama," Rohatgi wrote. Three years later, in writer-filmmaker Paromita Vohra's documentary, Morality TV Aur Loving Jehad: Ek Manohar Kahani, Sandeep Pahal, then a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activist, was seen underscoring the “perennial Hindu-Muslim conflict” in the communally sensitive city of Meerut and saying, "It's their (Muslims') hidden agenda  "What is perceived of the Muslim male is now being extended to the body of the Muslim woman," Gupta says. "The anti-CAA protests revealed that a Muslim woman is not going to be won over so easily." "For the right-wing, the Muslim woman was meek, less educated, less outgoing than the Hindu woman, and then there was this argument that Islam suppresses women, but the Shaheen Bagh protest brought [out] a different dimension," says Gupta, whose work explores caste, gender and feminism, modern Indian history, and masculinities. These women cannot easily be accused of violence or for that matter can't be related to a terrorist figure, she noted. “A terrorist figure is largely a male figure. And then here's a woman who wears her identity on her sleeve, is also a nationalist in abiding by the Constitution, so it becomes difficult for them to tackle.”   Citing a 2006 conversation with a young activist at the VHP’s Nagpur office, Anand wrote the former tried to convince him that "Muslim men are too sexy because they have a hard foreskin due to circumcision and this is preferred by [Hindu] girls” and this is why “we need cultured Hindu girls who think of their family and not sex". “The sexuality of Muslim men is seen as a threat to Bharat Mata and Hindu women by Hindutva,” says Bano. “And that threat has been recreated and harped upon so much these days." https://www.firstpost.com/india/actor-payal-rohatgis-outburst-against-safoora-zargar-typifies-right-wing-obsession-with-muslim-sexuality-8482581.html

8.     Arabs on Islam phobia and Kashmir : Jun., 19, 2020: Sheikha Hend bint Faisal Al Qasimi is an Emirati Royal of the Al Qasimi family of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, a businesswoman, and a philanthropist. She is also a peace activist. Recently, she hogged limelight for publically speaking out against Islamophobic social media posts made in the UAE amid the COVID-19 pandemic: Hend : Some Indians who are Hindus and are part of Hindutva have shown disrespect, and some have run off from the Gulf due to the current economic situation. India is a member of the United Nations and they have commitments and there is a clear violation of human rights in Kashmir. I would understand being under lockdown for a week or a month as during the current pandemic. But Kashmir has been under lockdown for up to 8 months and how long will it continue? Kashmir is a living prison and a camp. It is like Gaza happening all over again except it’s worse. Internet services have still not been restored fully. Why is the international community silent about this?  The situation is bad. This young girl Safoora Zargar has not been heard and denied bail. She is pregnant and I don’t understand that by having her locked up, what do they want to achieve? It’s horrible. The American Lawyers Bar Association has spoken against her detention and demanded her release. It has become an international embarrassment for India to deny human rights to a young woman and her unborn child. What’s happening in India is that there is this policy that you can’t discuss anything anymore as you will be attacked. In the Emirates, I can tell you for a fact that if anyone attacks Islam while living in the Emirates, there will be consequences. They were all contacted and called to the police station and depending on the extent of the damage, they were fined. That scared many of these people as they can’t afford to pay such hefty fines and don’t want to lose their jobs or shut down their companies. No one would want that. Indians and Arabs are both raised to respect each other, whether they are older folk or belong to different religions. I have never seen Islamophobia in my country except recently. I want to tell you that Muslims will never accept Islamophobia. Muslims of the Emirates may be quiet but this is a very sensitive issue for us. It will not be tolerated. We may be very peaceful people but I can tell you that already in Kuwait, they are not trusting Hindus employees or professionals anymore. After the video of this doctor in India surfaced saying all Muslims should be killed, it resonated very strongly in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. I didn’t know that such a political party could exist by ‘erasing’ or eradicating all others, even if they are also Indian nationals. Unfortunately, we keep hearing this and it is acting as a deterrent . They feel that these people have an agenda. People now are saying that they would rather go to a Muslim doctor or a Christian doctor then go to the Hindu one because people do not know the difference between Hindus and Hindutva. It’s a shame that the legalizing of abuse against non-Hindutva people has become accepted. I pray that peace once again returns to India. https://twocircles.net/2020jun18/437562.html

9.     Police partiality: Jun., 23, 2020: In February this year, a 23-year-old Muslim man, Faizan, was brutally assaulted along with four others by policemen in uniform. The assaulting officers were captured on camera, and were seen assaulting and forcing Faizan to sing the national anthem. Faizan succumbed to his injuries a few days later. But despite pressing video evidence, shot on a mobile camera, the Delhi police have not named any policemen as accused in the case. According to a report in HuffPost India, the FIR lodged at the Bhajanpura Police station makes no mention of the clearly documented video footage of the police assaulting Faizan. It also contradicts on-record police statements that Faizan was in police custody following his assault, and claims that Faizan died after he went missing from the Guru Tegh Bahadur hospital in northeast Delhi.The video had gone viral and sparked outrage across the country. While the family is yet to get the copy of the post-mortem report, the police have already begun pressurising witnesses to change their statements in the case, the HuffPost article says.  In March, The Wire’s Srishti Srivastava had met Faizan’s mother Kismatun. “Someone had recognised my son in GTB (Guru Teg Bahadur) hospital and called me. I went looking for him… I waited until 1 am. Another person had come there, whose child was also injured. I kept asking the police to let me meet my son… at least feed him… They did not let me even see him once. They just asked me to go back…”HuffPost India has put together a disturbing sequence of omission and possible misrepresentation the facts of the incident. The article says, “If the police FIR is to be believed, on Feb 25 Head Constable Manoj Bhatti arrived at GTB hospital and was provided Faizan’s medico-legal-certificate which claimed “physical assault by the mob” as stated by the patient himself. Faizan, the FIR claims, had received treatment and left GTB hospital on his own. The FIR claims the police visited Faizan’s house, but he was not at home. Later, the police learnt he had sought treatment at Lok Nayak Hospital and had died.” An eyewitness who was assaulted by the police alongside Faizan, however, told HuffPost India that they were bundled into a police vehicle after their assault and taken to the Guru Tegh Bahadur hospital for a round of basic first-aid, after which they were taken to the Jyoti Nagar police station. Kismatun has alleged that she has been asked by the police to change her statement. According to the HuffPost India article, she is not the only one to allegedly have been influenced. The relative had told the news website that the police intimidated the person who shot the video by insinuating that he was a rioter too. https://thewire.in/communalism/delhi-police-muslims-assaulted-fir\

10.                        US concern: Jun., 23, 2020:  Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback said on Wednesday, “We do remain very concerned about what’s taking place in India.”“The trend lines have been troubling in India because it’s such a religious subcontinent, and yet it’s getting more and more — we’re seeing a lot more communal violence, we’re seeing a lot more difficulty,” he said while answering a question about India from a Pakistani reporter after the release in Washington of the 2019 International Report on Religious Freedom.He warned that India was going to see more religious violence and to stem it suggested that India’s leadership hold interfaith dialogues. Brownback said that the US has been “concerned about the scapegoating of religious minorities” for the COVID-19 pandemic.    The report accused leaders of “Hindu-majority parties” of spreading anti-minority sentiments — and that wording would include the Congress Party since a majority of its membership are of the Hindu faith unless Brownback has a different standard for religious affiliation.“Some officials of Hindu-majority parties, including from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), made inflammatory public remarks or social media posts against minority communities,” the report said.“There were reports by NGOs that the government sometimes failed to act to prevent or stop mob attacks on religious minorities, marginalized communities, and critics of the government,” according to the report.The report took up “cow vigilantism,” saying “Mob attacks by violent Hindu groups against minority communities, including Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumours that victims had traded or killed cows for beef. Authorities often failed to prosecute perpetrators of such “cow vigilantism,” which included killings, mob violence, and intimidation.”But the report also noted that Madhya Pradesh “penalises ‘cow vigilantism’ by setting fines of 25,000 to 50,000 rupees ($350-$700) and prison sentences of six months to three years for committing violence in the name of protecting cows.” https://www.therahnuma.com/amid-us-protests-on-minority-rights-state-dpt-official-slams-india/

11.                        UN Experts on CAA: Jun, 27, 2020: A group of United Nations human rights experts has asked India to "immediately" release people who were arrested for protesting against the country's controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed last year."These defenders, many of them students, appear to have been arrested simply because they exercised their right to denounce and protest against the CAA," a press statement released by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday."[Their] arrest seems clearly designed to send a chilling message to India's vibrant civil society that criticism of government policies will not be tolerated," it said.  During the nationwide protests against the CAA, deadly violence had erupted in February in capital New Delhi in which 53 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Several anti-CAA activists were arrested in connection with the New Delhi violence and later charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), a stringent anti-terror law.The UN human rights experts said the police also failed to act against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and supporters accused of "incitement to hatred and violence".A federal minister had raised "shoot the traitors" slogans at a pro-CAA rally, while a BJP legislator from northeast Delhi - the site of February violence - had threatened to remove the protesters from the streets.In their statement, the UN experts named 11 of those arrested, saying their cases included "serious allegations of human rights violations" and "torture and ill-treatment" in custody. They said one of the "most alarming cases" of India's action against the CAA protesters involved pregnant student Safoora Zargar, who was jailed for more than two months. The other 10 jailed protesters named by them were Meeran Haider, Gulfisha Fatima, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal, Khalid Saifi, Shifa Ur Rehman, Kafeel Khan, Sharjeel Imam and Akhil Gogoi. The UN experts said these arrests appeared to be "discriminatory". Indian activists have also accused the BJP government of using limited access to legal resources during the coronavirus lockdown to target political dissenters and Muslims."Authorities should immediately release all human rights defenders who are currently being held in pre-trial detention without sufficient evidence, often simply on the basis of speeches they made criticising the discriminatory nature of the CAA," the UN experts said. In March, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC) Michelle Bachelet informed India that her office had filed an application urging the country's Supreme Court to make the UN body a third party in one of the many petitions filed by Muslim groups, opposition parties and activists challenging the CAA's constitutional validity. Meanwhile, the top court is still hearing those petitions. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/human-rights-experts-urge-india-release-anti-caa-protesters-200626105916987.html

Monthly update  9: May 2020 : Muslims in India  

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1.     FIR for Facebook post: May, 3, 2020: The Delhi Police on Saturday registered an FIR against the chairman Delhi Minorities Commission, Zafarul Islam Khan, for posting inflammatory content on social media. On April 28, Zafarul Islam Khan had posted on Facebook complaining of alleged persecution of Muslims in India. He also said that the Indian Muslims have not yet chosen to tell Arabs and the "Muslims world" about "hate campaigns, lynching and riots" against them in India. Had they done so, India would have been facing an "avalanche", he said in the post. "Mind you, bigots, Indian Muslims have opted untill now not to complain to the Arabs and Muslim world about your hate campaigns and lynching and riots. The day they are pushed to do that, bigots will face an avalanche," Zafarul Islam Khan's post read. Zafarul Islam Khan also thanked Kuwait for standing with the Indian Muslims. "The Hindutva bigots calculated that given the huge economic stakes involved the Muslims and Arab world will not care about the persecution of Muslims in India," he said. The post further read: "The bigots forgot that Indian Muslims enjoy huge goodwill in the eyes of the Arab and Muslim world for their services over the centuries to Islamic causes, excellence in Islam and Arabic scholarship, cultural and civilizational gifts to world heritage." Facing backlash, Zafarul Islam Khan, later, apologised for his post on May 1. "I have not complained against my country to any foreign government or organization nor I intend to do so in future. I am a patriot to the core and I have always defended my country abroad. However, at the same time, I have always been vocal about the problems in our country like any other country but, I also believe that we and our political, constitutional and judicial system are capable to tackle them," he had said. He further said: "According to my knowledge, Indian Muslims have never complained against their country to outside powers. I, like other Indian Muslims, believe in rule of law, the Indian Constitution and the fine institutions our country has." However, based on a complaint, the Delhi Police Special Cell filed an FIR against him on Saturday under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that lays down the punishment for sedition and Section 153A that call for punishment for promoting feelings of hatred between different groups on the grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence and language. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/delhi-police-fir-minorities-commission-chairman-inflammatory-content-social-media-india-muslims-1673568-2020-05-02

2.     Zargar: May. 3, 2020: The Indian chapter of Amnesty International on Friday demanded the release of Safoora Zargar, a pregnant activist who was arrested in connection with the communal violence that flared up in Delhi in February over the country's contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). According to a report by Al Jazeera, the 27-year-old was arrested on April 10 and charged under the country's Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2019 (UAPA). She was three months pregnant at the time of her arrest. Zargar was a research fellow at the Jamia Millia University in Delhi and the media coordinator for the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) which organised weeks of protests against the citizenship law passed by the government in December of last year. . https://www.dawn.com/news/1553967

3.     US warning: May., 4, 2020: Religious freedom in India, especially for Muslim, Christian and Dalit minorities has deteriorated sharply in the last one year as the country’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has allowed particularly serious campaigns of harassment and violence against them without any protection from the authorities.This is the conclusion of the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for 2020. Based on that, the USCIRF has designated India as a “country of particular concern” along with eight other countries where religious minorities face substantial persecution. In India since the BJP government came to power in New Delhi in 2014, Muslim, Christian and Dalit communities, have faced much organized harassment and violence from Hindu nationalist groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), linked with the BJP.The situation is particularly grim in states ruled by the BJP. Very frequently low-income Muslims have been falsely accused of cow-slaughter and lynched to death.Many Dalits have been similarly harassed and lynched. Christian churches have been set on fire and pastors attacked. The police remained spectators in most cases. Since BJP’s return to power in New Delhi, one year ago, extremist Hindu groups like the RSS, assisted by local police and encouraged by ministers in state and central governments have frequently indulged in violence against lower income segments of the Muslim and Dalit communities.At the same time many national mainstream media organizations are spreading false allegations against the Muslim community. The most painful recent happenings have been the large-scale organized violence by extremist Hindu groups that are part of the BJP government in New Delhi, against Muslims in some low-income localities in Northeast Delhi in late February 2020. About 60 people were killed as mosques, schools, shops, and houses of about 500 families were burnt and destroyed. The police instead of arresting the marauders and the leaders who exhorted them to commit this heinous crime, have arrested a large number of Muslim residents of Delhi including some victims of the carnage.In March as the coronavirus started spreading in India, as has happened in most countries, extremist Hindu groups supported by a section of the media started spreading false rumors that Muslims were spreading the virus.These extremist groups are also doing propaganda in the Hindu community telling them to boycott Muslims and not buy food or daily use items from Muslims, as those products carry the coronavirus. The Central government itself directly encouraged discrimination against Muslims by first putting the entire population of Jammu & Kashmir, the only Muslim majority state in India, under literal house arrest, that was imposed in August 2019 and is still continuing.It then enacted the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and proposed a National Registry of Citizens (NRC), which together many fear will take away the citizenship of several million Indian Muslims and render them stateless.In addition to the ongoing organized violence against the minorities, especially Muslims, USCIRF has cited in its 2020 annual report the above mentioned highly discriminatory CAA and NRC.USCIRF has recommended to the US State Department that the US government take action including sanctions against Indian government agencies and the leaders involved in such practices, in order to make them reverse their stand and ensure real protection and equal rights for the religious minorities, especially Muslims. This action of USCIRF puts India in the worst category of countries that it deems as serious violators of rights of religious minorities.Such negative labeling by US could conceivably result in US sanctions and significant reduction in Foreign Direct Investment in India from large multinational corporations with serious economic consequences.    https://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2020/05/02/us-call-to-remove-injustice-to-minorities-will-help-india-440954/

4.     UAE reacts: May, 4, 2020: Three more Indians have been fired or suspended by their employers in United Arab Emirates over Islamophobic posts, Gulf News reported on Saturday. The UAE has taken interest in Indian residents’ social media activities after backlash from Arab intellectuals over reports of anti-Islamic posts by Indians in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2015, UAE had passed a non discrimination law which criminalised any hate speech on any media that aimed at stoking religious hatred or insulting any religion. Despite the warning, Gulf News reported that local companies took action again a chef, storekeeper and a cash clerk for their posts on social media which reportedly criticised Islam. The UAE franchisee of Eataly, a restaurant chain in Dubai told Gulf News that a chef, Rohit Rawat had been suspended and faced a disciplinary probe for his posts. Another firm, Pneumics Automation, also stated that a storekeeper, Sachin Kinnigoli, has been told not to return to work, while his conduct is being probed.“We have withheld his salary and told him not to come to work. The matter is under investigation. We have a zero tolerance policy. Anyone found guilty of insulting or showing contempt for someone’s religion will have to bear the consequences,” the owner told the paper.The third case was of an employee at a manpower supplier company, Transguard group, who had posted an offensive post on Ramzan on his Facebook account under a false name of “Vishal Thakur”.In replies to tweets, the group said, “Following an internal investigation, the employee responsible for posting these inflammatory comments under a false name has been identified, terminated and handed over to the authorities as per the strict zero-tolerance social media policy of Transguard Group”. Gulf News added that a Transguard spokesperson added that Thakur had been handed over to Dubai police custody as per UAE Cybercrime Law No. 5 of 2012. He also said that the company’s social media policy complies with UAE’s cyber crime regulations. ““It is enforced through regular monitoring, evaluation and, if necessary, disciplinary action, including fines, termination and deportation, as per federal law,” the spokesperson said. As per a list drawn by the paper, offensive social media post and discriminatory messages by at least seven Indians in the last four months have come under the spotlight, which led to several of them losing their jobs or facing police complaints. https://thewire.in/communalism/indians-probe-communal-posts-uae

5.     Workers deaths in India: May, 11, 2020: On Friday, 16 migrant workers were crushed to death by a goods train when they were attempting to make their way to Aurangabad railway station with the hope of catching a train to their homes in Madhya Pradesh. They were walking along the railway track to avoid being thrashed by the police on the roads and with the knowledge that trains aren’t running. After walking for several hours, the workers were exhausted. They sat down to rest and fell asleep. An oncoming goods train ran over them at around 5.20 am.The migrants worked at a private steel company in Jalna in Maharashtra and had not been paid since the first lockdown began on March 24. Given the desperate situation and not knowing when they could work again, they wanted to get back home to be with their families and decided to walk in the hope of finding a train. In another incident on Saturday night, at least five migrant labourers were killed and 13 others injured when a truck in which they were travelling overturned in Madhya Pradesh’s Narsinghpur district. The incident took place in Patha village in Narsinghpur. Around 18 labourers were travelling in a truck carrying mangoes from Telangana’s Hyderabad city to Agra in Uttar Pradesh. The workers killed in these two accidents are not the only people to have lost their lives during the lockdown due to reasons other than COVID-19. In fact, according to researchers Thejesh G.N., Kanika Sharma and Aman, till Saturday, 378 people had died since the lockdown was imposed due to reasons other than the disease. Of them, 69 people died in rail or road accidents while walking to their homes – the only mode of travel available as public transport had been suspended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which gave notice of only four hours before the first lockdown came into effect  The researchers point out that their compilation does not include all deaths that have occurred as a consequence of the lockdown. “It must be underscored that these deaths are likely an underestimate: only a fraction of deaths are reported by the media and we may have missed some deaths reported in local media as well,” they said in a press note on Friday. https://thewire.in/rights/migrant-workers-non-coronavirus-lockdown-deaths . The gross mishandling will alienate a large segment of the population thereby paving the way to an electoral alliance between the poor, the minorities and the tribal’s.

6.     Crackdown on dissent: May, 11, 2020: A group of 90 scholars based in the United Kingdom have issued a statement condemning the brutal crackdown on dissent and protests during the COVID-19 lockdown. The Narendra Modi government, they have said, has launched a “witch-hunt” against students and activists.

7.     In, particular, the group has referred to charges filed against Umar Khalid, Meeran Haider and Safoora Zargar, who were involved in the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests, and now face charges under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.The signatories include scholars from the London School of Economics, Oxford University, Cambridge University and other well-known UK varieties. https://kashmirwatch.com/uk-scholars-aja-usa-condemn-modi-govt-for-charging-students-activists-under-draconian-laws/

8.     EU: May, 16, 2020: The European Parliament in a report has expressed concern over the situation in occupied Kashmir and controversial policies of the Modi government regarding minorities living in India.The report prepared by the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) said that after the recommencement of second consecutive tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party after its success in the May 2019 general elections, the situation in India regarding democracy, tolerance, rule of law, and managing patchwork of cultures and religions had been changing in recent months under the impact of an ever-increasing Hindu nationalist grip on society and politics.The report authored by Enrico D’Ambrogio, Members’ Research Service, said that Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2020 report placed India under the spotlight and ranked occupied Kashmir as ‘not free’. “Some warning signs were already present during the first term served by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in charge since the Hindu nationalist BJP won an absolute majority in the lower chamber (Lok Sabha) in 2014. Communal violence has increased, as have violence and discrimination against religious minorities, it said.The report said the 2019 World Press Freedom Index has highlighted violence against journalists as one of the most striking characteristics of the current state of press freedom in the country. The government has banned several thousand non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from receiving foreign funding and has sought to get a firm grip on information technology, however, its proposed changes to the Information Technology Act have raised a number of concerns, it added. Furthermore, the report said, the government members evoked limits on free speech and have equated dissent with a lack of patriotism. It said, India is a world leader in internet shutdowns (there were 106 such suspensions in 2019). In June 2018, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report on Kashmir criticising the excessive use of force by Indian forces in occupied Kashmir, it said, adding the July 2019 version of this report found that India had taken no steps to improve the situation in Kashmir.The EU report said that since the BJP’s May 2019 landslide electoral victory for the Lok Sabha the party had stepped up several initiatives catering to its Hindu nationalist electoral base. The report said a symbolic move was when in early August 2019, Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its special status through the repeal of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. It said, the move was preceded by a vast deployment of troops to the territory and the detention of thousands of political leaders and activists. It said, telephone and internet services were cut off and after several months of blackout, in January 2020 the Indian Supreme Court ruled that internet services could only be suspended temporarily. It said a further issue prompting reactions all over the country, and concern abroad, has been the Parliament’s adoption of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in December 2019. It added amending the 1955 Citizenship Act, it enables migrants/foreigners from six religious communities (Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian, but not Muslim) in three neighbouring countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan), who had come to India before 31st December 2014, to apply for Indian citizenship via a fast-track route.It said the adoption of the CAA has prompted spontaneous nationwide protests, some of which have been the focus of violent police crackdowns. It said, in most parts of the country, the narrative against the CAA is based on the government’s decision to grant citizenship along religious lines, which arguably undermines India’s secular tradition enshrined in the Constitution. Outright critics see the legislation as deliberately anti-Muslim, it added.The report said, India’s Muslim majority already felt targeted when in July 2019 the Parliament passed a bill criminalising the Muslim practice of instant divorce (triple talaq). The government, it said, has announced its intention to move towards the launch of the National Register for Citizens. As many Indians lack the documents needed to attest their citizenship, they fear that the NRC in liaison with the CAA could lead to them facing deportation, it added.The report said the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, has echoed these concerns, warning of the risk of statelessness. It said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, has filed an Intervention Application on the CAA to the Indian Supreme Court; the latter is due to examine more than 160 CAA-related pleas.The report said, several hate speech incidents occurred during the BJP rallies in the wake of the 8th February 2020 election for the Delhi Legislative Assembly. It said a few BJP leaders and activists raised the slogan goli maro salon ko (‘shoot the traitors of the country’) in response to the protests against the CAA, symbolized in Delhi by a continuous sit-in in the Shaheen Bagh area. It said on 23rd February, just before the US President, Donald Trump’s visit to India – which failed to deliver deals on trade or security – a BJP leader gave a three-day ultimatum to Delhi police to clear a protest against the CAA and the NRC by women at Jaffrabad metro station, threatening to intervene directly if his orders were not obeyed. Hours later, it said, three-day riots, mostly targeting Muslims, began in the north-eastern parts of Delhi; the tally was 53 dead due to physical assault or gunshots and 200 injured. Furthermore, the report said, houses and shops were burnt and mosques were vandalised. It added on 26th February, a Delhi High Court judge who, as part of investigating the riots, had asked the police to register first-information reports against BJP leaders for delivering hate speeches, was transferred to another location with immediate effect, a move causing concern over the independence of the judiciary. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/05/15/eu-mentions-indian-controversial-policies-in-its-report/

9.     New Zeeland reacts: May, 18, 2020: An Indian community leader in New Zealand has lost his membership in the association of honorary judicial officers over posts on social media that were criticized for being Islamophobic – a first step towards his eventual dismissal as a justice of the peace. The incident was reported by a weekly diaspora newspaper in Auckland which said that it was “first case of its kind in New Zealand”. Among his posts deemed objectionable was one endorsing an economic boycott of Muslims in India.    https://thewire.in/communalism/islamophobia-indian-new-zealand

10.                        UN on CAA: May, 21, 2020: In a strong statement, a senior United Nations official has expressed concern that the adoption of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 has led to rising number of hate speech and discrimination against minority communities. In a press note issued through the UN, the special advisor on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng, said that while the objective of the act to provide protection to minorities is commendable, “it is concerning that this protection is not extended to all groups, including Muslims.”“This is contrary to India’s obligations under international human rights law, in particular on non-discrimination,” he stated.Referring to these protests, the May 18 statement noted that the UN special advisor expressed concern over reports that demonstrations “had reportedly resulted in the injury and death of civilians, attacks on religious sites, as well as an increase in expressions of hate against India’s Muslim community”. On hate speech, he specifically mentions by name a ruling party parliamentarian as especially worrisome. “…statements such as those expressed by Member of Parliament Subramanian Swamy, that all people are not equal, and that Muslims are not in an ‘equal category’ as others are extremely alarming. Hate speech and the dehumanisation of others goes against international human rights norms and values”.The UN official said that the Indian government should continue to “abide by this guidance” to ensure that national laws and policies follow international standards and counter the rise of hate speech. https://thewire.in/communalism/un-expert-adama-dieng-caa-hate-speech\

11.                        Biased Indian Police: May, 23, 2020: On February 24, communal violence engulfed North East Delhi, leaving at least 53 people dead over the next three days, most of whom were Muslim. Exactly a month later, India went under a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. Normal life came to a halt – but not Delhi Police’s investigation into the violence. By April 13, the police had made more than 800 arrests, the Indian Express reported. An unidentified official was quoted in the report saying that the Union Home Ministry “insisted that police must continue making arrests under any circumstances”.   On May 16, activists of the Peoples’ Union for Democratic Rights, a civil liberties group, wrote in The Hindu that very little was known about the status of most Delhi violence cases. Based on an analysis of around 40 FIRs, it accused the police of displaying communal bias against Muslims, by diluting charges against Hindu accused. “It is imperative, for the sake of justice that all FIRs pertaining to the riots be opened to public scrutiny,” the activists said. Activists say this raises further questions, given that Muslims bore the brunt of the violence: 38 of the 53 killed are from the community.  Activist Harsh Mander said the nature of violence in North East Delhi on the first day was that of a riot as both communities engaged in violence. On the subsequent days however, he said, it evolved into a pogrom “where organisations and people of the majority community, with active state protection and support, attacked the properties and bodies of Muslim residents”.

12.            “The maximum loss of life and the loss of property was of this minority community, as has happened in virtually every major episode of communal violence after Partition, barring very few exceptions,” he said. Scroll.in examined a few cases closely to find a troubling pattern: often victims of the violence were being prosecuted by the police. A mob on the streets of North East Delhi on February 24. Credit: Reuters/ Danish Siddiqui  On March 1, Hasim Ali submitted a complaint to the Karawal Nagar police station. In the complaint, the 60-year-old resident of Shiv Vihar wrote about how his home was looted, ransacked and burnt to the ground at around 3 pm on February 25. A mixed neighbourhood of both Hindus and Muslims, Shiv Vihar had seen intense rioting over three days. Several Muslim families had fled the area as mobs ran through it and desecrated the Medina Masjid, located in the same lane as Ali’s home. Ali oversaw the administrative work of the mosque, said his son Aabid Ali, 22. In his complaint, which Scroll.in has seen, Ali said he witnessed the mob set his house on fire and identified three people in the crowd: Diwan, Dashrath and Bhudev. “Diwan and Dashrath live behind my house and Bhudev lives in front of it,” he wrote. “In teeno ko maine saaf taur par dekha”– I saw them clearly. Around 5.55 pm, another neighbour, Dharmendra, along with others, set fire to his second house, Ali wrote in the complaint. He claimed to have heard members of the mobs say they would be given Rs 10,000 for burning one house and Rs 5,000 for burning a shop. “I heard them say we will kill all the mullahs [Muslims] and burn their homes,” he alleged. He claimed when he called the police that evening, they said they were coming, but did not arrive.Hasim Ali ran a tailoring shop in his house, and his family, including his 53-year-old wife Anisha Begum, four sons and daughter-in-laws, lost everything as their two houses were burnt to the ground that day. In the letter, he requested compensation for his losses pegged at Rs 90 lakh and asked the police to investigate the actions of the rioters. The police attached Hasim Ali’s complaint to an FIR dated February 28, filed at Karawal Nagar police station by another resident of Shiv Vihar, Naresh Chand, who lived two lanes away, said Hasim Ali’s lawyer Brij Shyam. Scroll.in has seen the FIR that sums up Chand’s account of narrowly escaping violent mobs with his family around 5 pm on February 25. Their home was looted and burnt by mobs, he said. They family lost their fridge, 40-inch LED television screen, motorcycle and jewellery.  On the FIR, the police have scribbled a note stating that Ali’s complaint had been attached with this FIR “for all legal purposes”. The FIR listed offences of rioting with deadly weapons, unlawful assembly and use of explosives. It is not clear why the police did not file a separate FIR on the basis of Ali’s complaint. On April 4, the police arrived at the house around 4 pm. Anisha Begum, the wife of Hasim Ali, said they asked for her elder son Rashid. He was not at home. Instead, they took away Hasim Ali. Aabid Ali, who works as an electrician, said the police had previously taken away his father for questioning “four to five” times, and each time he had returned after a few hours. “They would ask him about what happened during the riots, how did it happen,” Aabid Ali said. “Papa used to tell them what happened, that our house was burned and looted...two bikes and one scooty were burned,” Aabid Ali recalled. But on April 4, Hasim Ali did not come back. Aabid Ali called him at 6.14 pm. “He said they had just called him for interrogation and that there was nothing to worry about,” the son said. He called his father again at 6.39 pm. “Papa said he was just waiting and that police had not yet asked him anything,” Aabid Ali said.Around 9 pm, he was still waiting to be questioned. Finally, at 10 pm, he called up Aabid Ali and told him that the police were taking him for a medical check-up. “From behind, I heard someone say, ‘take away his phone, he is talking too much,’” Aabid Ali said. That was the last he heard from his father. When Aabid Ali called his father’s phone at 11 pm, a stranger answered. “He said that they had arrested my father... I asked him who he was and he said he too had been interrogated.” The police had released him after interrogation. Hasim Ali’s wife, Anisha Begum, went to Shiv Vihar that night to collect the phone and money from this man.The next morning, Aabid Ali received a call from an unknown number. It was his father. He asked them to bring him some clothes and food. Aabid Ali and his uncle Shaukat Ali reached the police station within half an hour. Only Shaukat Ali was allowed to enter. Aabid Ali caught a glimpse of his father: “I saw him from a distance,” he said. “They did not let me meet him.”The police did not give them any information about the FIR under which Hasim Ali had been arrested.  “Our house was burned and looted and we complained but none of those people were picked up. They are still roaming around,” said Aabid Ali. “Instead, the police took away our father and are chasing our brother  Kumar said Ali’s witness statement would be taken under Section 161 of the criminal procedure code. “When you name people, you should give some proof against them,” he added. He said the main complainant of the FIR, Naresh Chand, had given evidence in the form of CCTV footage recorded on that day.  Lawyer Abhik Chimni said that asking for proof from a complainant was “prima facie incorrect”. “The idea of an investigation is to reach a conclusion about the claim,” he said. “Police asking for proof from the complainant is bizarre.” A bail application for Hasim Ali was submitted by his lawyer Brij Shyam on May 3 at Karkardooma District Court. It states that the accused was a victim of violence who had filed a complaint but instead had been “falsely implicated” by the police. At the first hearing on May 6, the court asked investigating officer Suman Kumar to submit a response, Shyam said. The next hearing took place on May 12 where the investigating officer did not turn up and the hearing was again scheduled on May 13, the lawyer said. After arguments were made on May 13, Hasim Ali was granted bail on May 15 by Additional Sessions Judge Yogita Singh.  In the bail order, the judge noted the counsel’s arguments for the accused which stated that Hasim Ali was “falsely implicated” in the case and was the sole breadwinner of the family. The judge also noted in the order that the investigating officer opposed the bail appolication and had accused Hasim Ali of being involved in serious offences. The judge asked the accused to furnish a surety bond of Rs 20,000 and noted the “personal difficulty of the accused” – the fact that he was the sole earning member – to allow his release from judicial custody.  Subhash Tyagi, 51, works in a government-run hospital in Delhi. He lives in Yamuna Vihar with his wife and children, while his parents, three brothers and their families live in North Ghonda. On February 23, the family left Delhi to attend a wedding in Firozpur village in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district. Tyagi stayed back. So did his 26-year-old niece and 16-year-old nephew. The next day as communal violence spread through North East Delhi, they called him to say tensions were rising in their area, he recalled. Tyagi left work and reached North Ghonda around 7 pm. While he was parking his bike in front of the gate of the house, some people came to attack him, he alleged. The mob, he claimed, was armed with sticks, stones and firearms and chanted slogans like “Allah Hu Akbar!” Leaving his motorcycle there, Tyagi ran into a neighbour’s house. When he emerged around 9 pm after the mob retreated, he found his motorcycle had been burnt, the gate of the house had been broken and glass windows shattered, he said. His niece and nephew had recorded videos of the vandalism. They also called the police helpline but no one responded, he said. On the night of the violence, Tyagi did not return to his home in Yamuna Vihar and stayed back at the family home in North Ghonda for the next four days. His brothers came back from Baghpat around 11 pm on February 24, he said. On February 27, whenScroll.in had visited the area to report on the aftermath of the violence, Tyagi and his brother had given a similar account of the mob violence. A burnt bike was parked outside their home. It took the family three weeks to file a police complaint. On March 16, Subhash Tyagi’s brother Virendar Tyagi wrote to the station house officer at Bhajanpura police station, saying he recognised faces in the violent mob seen in video footage recorded by his daughter. He asked the police to launch an investigation into the matter. But the police did not file an FIR on the basis of the complaint, said Subhash Tyagi. However, police officials at Bhajanpura police station told Scroll.in that an FIR had been filed on the basis of Virendar Tyagi’s complaint. They refused to disclose the FIR number to this reporter over the phone.  On April 8, Subhash Tyagi along with his brothers Naresh Tyagi, 53, and Uttam Tyagi, 40, received summons to appear before Inspector Richhpal Singh at the Crime Branch office in Dwarka on April 9. They were asked to bring their mobile phones.The notices said that the investigation pertained to a case registered at the Jaffrabad police station for offences related to rioting, criminal conspiracy and the Arms Act. However, at the crime branch office on April 9, where they found themselves as part of a group of 22 men, they were told the case pertained to the murder of a person named Parvez who had been killed near Baburam Chowk in Maujpur. Their mobile phone locations showed they were present near the spot at that time on February 25, the police said.“If our house is there, then we will be located there itself, no?” said Subhash Tyagi. He claimed his family home located at the corner of gali number 3 of North Ghonda and was over 800 m from Baburam Chowk. Scroll.in accessed an FIR filed on February 26 by Assistant Sub Inspector Rakesh under Section 302 for punishment of murder. The FIR, which is not available on the police website, does not name any of the accused. The FIR states that on February 25, a 48-year-old man identified as Pravesh was brought dead to GTB Hospital at Dilshad Garden. The medico-legal certificate said he had suffered a firearm injury near Baburam Chowk, Maujpur at around 7 pm. In the FIR, the police official said he tried to search for eyewitnesses but could not find anyone. Inspector Richhpal Singh told Scroll.in that the person identified in the FIR as Pravesh was later identified as Parvez Alam. Parvez Alam, 50, ran an NGO in the area providing books to students and free eye surgeries for the elderly. On February 27, Scroll.in visited the area and spoke to a neighbour who claimed he had seen Alam fall to a bullet while making an appeal for peace at the corner of his lane in Ghonda. Alam’s son also recounted his father’s last moments to reporters outside the GTB hospital. Baburam Chowk in Maujpur is at least 500 metres away from the lane in which Alam lived. Scroll.in sent queries to the police about this discrepancy – the FIR alleges that Alam suffered his injury “near Baburam Chowk”, though his neighbour and son say he was shot at the corner of his lane. The piece will be updated if the police respond. On April 9 morning, Subhash Tyagi had carried a pen drive with him to the crime branch office, which had screenshots of the mob vandalism footage recorded from a neighbour’s CCTV camera on February 24 evening in North Ghonda. But the police refused to see it. “They [police] said we should show all this in court,” he said.Subhash Tyagi claimed that police made all the men sit on the floor of the crime branch office without maintaining any physical distancing norms required to avoid the spread of the coronavirus.He was finally allowed to leave at 11 pm after being made to fill up some forms. “Like a dossier for criminals,” he said. “They told me they were letting me go because I have a government job.” But his brothers were arrested and so were several other men, he recalled. Many were familiar faces from the area. “Everyone there was from our community, the Hindu community,” he said. “Humare aas paas ke log the sab.” He said that many of those arrested that day were neighbours and victims of the February violence in which their homes and vehicles had been destroyed.  Subhash Tyagi received another notice signed by Inspector Ricchpal Singh dated May 20 to appear before him on May 21 at 11 am at the crime branch office in Dwarka to give information regarding the investigation of the same FIR under which his brothers were arrested. Tyagi said he was unable to go because his leave was rejected by his workplace in light of Covid-19.  .Subhash Tyagi said his family has been unable to meet or speak to his brothers since they were arrested on April 9 and taken to Mandoli jail. The family was concerned for their health as both brothers are diabetic, he said. Listing the educational qualifications of his brothers, who run a packaging business, he asked: “If we were criminals then why would we go there [the crime branch office]?” https://scroll.in/article/962526/in-delhi-violence-investigation-a-disturbing-pattern-victims-end-up-being-arrested-by-police

13.            Islam phobia in India: May, 26, 2020: New Delhi: A new report by Equality Labs has found that Islamophobia (both online and offline) in India is more prominent than ever, saying, “India is in the midst of a disturbing escalation of Islamophobic hate campaign on social media,” as the world is fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Equality Labs is a South Asian Community Technology Organization dedicated to ending Caste apartheid, gender-based violence, Islamophobia, White Supremacy and Religious Intolerance. In their new report titled ‘Coronajihad: An analysis of Islamophobic COVID-19 hatespeech and disinformation and its implications on content moderation and social media policy’  reveals a disturbing increase in Islamophobia and hate speech against Muslims in India. The report notes that the weeks following Tablighi Jamaat event in New Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz saw national headlines filled with visuals and sweeping narratives of how Muslims have been actively spreading Coronavirus, giving rise to the massive Twitter campaign with the hashtag #Coronajihad. “Hateful hashtags and comments against Muslims had first appeared in the first week of March with tags like #Quranovirus and #BanTheBook appearing as soon as the news spread that the annual international gathering of Tablighi Jamaat had taken place despite the virus infection rising rapidly,” the report reads. Surprisingly, the report adds that “the Jamaat gathering was held between March 10-13, when no lockdown or social distancing measures were either announced or anywhere observed in the country.” In fact, a week before that, US President Donald Trump had visited Indian Prime Minister’s home state of Gujarat while a massive pogrom against Muslims was unfolding in northeast Delhi, India’s Capital. The Indian Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal on March 13, had spoken on Coronavirus stating “it is not a health emergency” insisting that “there was no need to panic,” it adds.While the advisory by Indian Health Ministry proved to be an absolute contradiction of WHO’s guideline against the virus, many religious gatherings in the country continued, it says. The report noted that “there were dozens of examples of governments, political parties and other religious groups who also flouted the coronavirus restrictions and gathered in large numbers at the same time of the Tablighi Jamaat gathering,” and that “millions of Hindus also congregated for religious ceremonies, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath convening temple runs hours after the Prime Minister declared the first lockdown on March 25.” But the disparity between huge frequency of national gatherings across faiths and that of the one Tablighi gathering saw huge media coverage in mainstream channels with “political and local actors specifically targeting only Muslims.” The report traces that exactly at this time hate campaign originated in Indian Twitter with hashtags like #SuperSpreaders referring to Tabligh congregation attendees. It took only a few hours for the tag to trend over other platforms with claims like “Muslims are terrorists, intentionally spreading the virus as an act of bioterrorism.” As a consequence, the Jamaat event came to be known as a ‘super spreader’ while various leaders from the BJP were seen retweeting posts demonizing Muslims, followed by innumerable Hindu nationalists living abroad who engaged in a large scale “relentless dehumanization of Indian Muslims.” An ongoing police action and false charges against Muslim scholars and activists who were involved in citizenship protests further insinuated the #Coronajihad campaign with an increase in hate speech and disinformation across all social media platforms, especially in the Arab media. Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission had been vocal about “the whole focus being directed only on Muslims” as a wave of attacks including the social boycott of Muslim businesses and harassment of Muslim vendors by Hindutva groups spread in the country. With that, “#Coronajihad” went viral and increasingly dangerous conspiracy narratives trended on Twitter and Facebook. Soon after, these posts saw Hindutva agents equating Muslims with the virus, labelling them as “bioterrorists.” News outlets like ANI, Zee News, Republic TV and others “normalized the stigmatization of minorities and amplified the polarization through unequivocal facts.” The Disinformation Team of Equality Labs revealed that hashtag #Coronajihad was backtracked with “over 293,000 conversations on Twitter, recording more than 700,000 points of engagement.” Overall, including likes, clicks, shares, comments and mentions, these conversations mapped at least 15 hate comments per post, in relation to the number of followers and by the end of the last week of March, islamophobic content within only this hashtag had reached 170 million users across Twitter. Users like AjayPandey, AAOLion, shakthigj, vaakpathi, hellmadhu and others among the Indian Twitter posted 250 tweets a day coupled with the sheer large number of accounts pushing out #coronojihad content both on YouTube and Facebook. While a YouTube video “Panchjanya” explained that “Muslims have purposely infected others with coronavirus”, another website also featured Twitter content to demonstrate “the continued cross-pollination of Twitter hate speech on other social media platforms.” Right-wing influencer Payal Rohatgi had also been frequently spreading misinformation and hate on YouTube and in her latest video where she called Corona a “Chinese virus,” falsely claiming that the Tablighi Jamaat organized their congregation in the Nizamuddin Markaz in New Delhi after the lockdown orders by the Central government. Similarly, Hindu religious leader, Narsingh Vani, popular as “India’s Virathu,” contributed more to the anti-Muslim rhetoric with his YouTube channel of 229k subscribers calling to boycott Muslims through “a Hindu holy war.” Vani had also appeared on Sudarshan TV on April 1 where he claimed: “Muslims were spreading Corona Jihad by spitting on people.” He also linked the Tablighi Jamaat to ISIS, Taliban and Al Qaeda. However, the Islamophobic campaign that started with Tablighi incident received tremendous global reactions too, disclosing that the hate speech against Muslims extends beyond India. Despite multiple fact-checking institutions to debunk the fake news and hate speech against Muslims, nothing substantial was done on either Facebook or Twitter, states the report. It added that India being the largest market for Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram, the Indian disinformation networks quickly disseminated disinformation into the global discourse, covering a greater geographic expanse across the globe. While accounts like Act for America, Pamela Gellar, Jihad Watch, Neal Boortz, Andy Ngo, Katie Hopkins, Tommy Robinson, and others noted for their notorious Islamophobic posts propagated hate online; a major network of Hindu nationalists spread across predominantly India and US were revealed to have an upper hand in anti-Muslim activity beyond the Indian subcontinent. All of these were seen to be most active during the period #Coronajihad was trending, and according to the report, the hashtag invoked 23.1 billion conversations. Based on the above stats, the Equality team of researchers reported a problem of “censorship by noise” which occurs when high volumes of content are pushed by active users through its algorithm. The researchers have subsequently recommended Twitter to investigate these handles for more insight into how the “users are manipulating algorithm through human or potential bot behaviour.” It has suggested that rather than relying on one-off takedowns of “bad actors” or bad users, Twitter must regulate its algorithm “if this problem is to be realistically addressed.” In another significant finding, the report states that this hate campaign that gained traction with Tablighi incident had actually begun on December 23, 2019, with #CAA2019 #CAA hashtags. Soon after the anti-CAA protests were reported nationwide, pro-CAA protestors and major Hindutva groups had started trending hashtag #Virathu, calling on monk Ashin Wirathu from Myanmar for a potential genocide of Muslims. Wirathu who had led the genocide against Rohingya Muslims was gradually seen to be trending on Twitter from December 23 onwards, being lauded by Hindu nationalists by deliberately misspelling it as #Virathu so that posts celebrating him and his policies of genocide avoid detection by the AI hate speech algorithms. The hashtag continued evolving as Shaheen Bagh style sit-ins were organized in Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ranchi and elsewhere; taking forms like #ShaheenBaghjihadi #ShaheenBaghProtests #IslamicTerrorism #IslamicStateOfShaheenBagh. All of this ultimately got connected with the Delhi pogrom a day after BJP’s Kapil Mishra released a video demanding the killing of Muslims in February 2020. The trending campaigns around this time that saw maximum traction were #BoycottMuslimShops #IslamicJihad #DelhiRiots #DelhiPolice #DelhiIsBurning with hashtags turning into #Shahrukh #IStandWithKapilMishra #HarHinduKapilMishra, #ISupportKapilMishra by February end. As social media got flooded with anti-Muslim cartoons, mainstream media also amplified the hate campaign against Muslims. Vir Sanghvi, a well-known Indian journalist working in the English-language media, described the Tablighi members as having committed “attempted murder,” while the reputed national daily, The Hindu was quick to issue an apology for its display of an insensitive graphic showing Coronavirus dressed in the traditional ‘Pathan suit’ worn by Muslims in the subcontinent. The cartoon was attributed to Deepak Harichandran. Top ten major national media outlets targeted Muslims during the first week of April in the wake of the hashtag #Coronajihad and the Tablighi Jamaat gathering. In this regard, the report mentions Alt news as one fact-checking organization for “diligently tracking each claim”, helping the Lab to have a public record of the Islamophobic COVID-19 hate speech and disinformation that appeared between February – April 2020. Meanwhile, government-backed resources and politically charged pages on Facebook, including the official BJP national page, Narendra Modi, Congress Mukt Bharat, BJP for 2024 continued spewing venom through cartoons, graphics and videos reflecting bearded Muslims as carriers of the virus – dressed in Pathan suits and caps, loaded with rifles and guns – often shown bombarding public property. With its tenacious coverage of post details on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the Lab has revealed a shocking connection between these posts and resultant on ground instances of daily violence perpetrated on Muslims within the period. As hate hashtags circulated online media, Indian Muslims were reported to face threats and afflicted with violence in real life. Hospitals were allegedly separating Hindu and Muslim wards, denying treatment to Muslim patients, and profiling Muslim victims of the pandemic. The gravest incident was recorded on April 5 when a man had committed suicide in Una district of Himachal Pradesh because villagers had targeted and bullied him over the spread of Coronavirus following the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi. In the south, a Muslim activist from Bengaluru, Zeerin, while distributing relief material under lockdown was questioned for spitting on food to spread the diseases to everyone. Globally too, these online hate comments were seen converting into actions as Islamophobic slurs, shootings and discrimination hit international headlines. Among the recent incidents is from the UK where a Muslim woman wearing a hijab and a mask overheard a man in a supermarket refer to her as “a bomb” as he pointed at her. Furthermore, in the US, continued attacks against Muslims, including a mosque destroyed by arson in Missouri, ravages the community. The report also highlighted that while the BJP is running a full-fledged anti-Muslim campaign in India, Donald Trump was stoking Islamophobia elsewhere. Hence the need to stop more Islamophobic attacks in the US is now more urgent than ever.In light of the online and offline hate speech against Muslims, Equality Labs report warned that anti-Muslim hatred and conspiracy theories were “penetrating common-sense thinking” and the consumers of news globally, “were seeing this fake news and absorbing it” therefore “Immediate action is needed.” The report, in its conclusion, pointed that “this is not an accident of an overworked editorial room, but a reflection of the deep biases of newsrooms lacking cultural competencies and self-or awareness of their caste and religious biases.”Highlighting the deep-rooted cultural biases within Indian newsrooms, the report blamed Indian national news outlets of “prioritizing islamophobia as opposed to evidence-based reporting that could have helped unify and build community during a frightening time for the Indian public.” http://twocircles.net/2020may24/437079.html

Racism: Jun, 1, 2020: Outrage sparked after Dr Aarti Lalchandani’s video leaked on social media. In the leaked video, Dr Aarti can be heard suggesting to inject poison to muslim COVID-19 patients in India rather than wasting government resources over them.  https://www.newpakweb.com/video-inject-poison-to-muslim-covid-19-patients-dr-aarti-lalchandani-suggests/?fbclid=IwAR0X1LfKid4nPMjFvHuLVFxm0pyAIEcRN4Cm75r6aP3ej1qbitT3gSi7wKc

Monthly update  8:  April 2020 : Muslims in India

This page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India

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1.     BJP on Muslims; Apr., 5, 2020: One of the key leaders of the BJP ruling party in India, Subramanian Swamy, in a video interview, said that any country where Muslims are up to 30 percent is in danger. Mr. Swamy said Muslims in India are not an equal citizen to others. Manipulating Indian constitution article 14, Mr. Swamy said the constitution provided equality to the equals and Muslims are not equal citizens. He said his Bharatiya Jana Party (BJP) had been trying for a long time to restrain Muslims in India and now we are in power and handling them as per our mission. When the entire world is fighting against COVID-19 and countries are helping each other to clean the world from this deadly pandemic, the Indian BJP government and their racist leaders find this as an opportunity to silently act on cleansing Muslims from India and Kashmir. According to sources, the Indian Government is offering residency to 3000 Israelis in Kashmir. BJP government wants to create a Palestine’s like situation in Kashmir and cleansing of Kashmiri Muslims. India has violated all international laws and United Nations’ resolution on Kashmir. The leaders of the ruling BJP particularly Indian Prime Minister Modi is spending millions of dollars on building RSS force and BJP youth workers to target and kill Muslims. The BJP leaders including their parliamentarians openly provoke Hindu youth in demonstrations to go and attack Muslims houses and business, kill youth and rape women. During the last February & March, thousands of Muslim houses and shops were looted by Hindu extremist mobs who were backed by RSS leaders and RSS paramilitary force. This RSS force attack Muslim dominated areas, looting Muslims properties, torturing and killing Muslims and raping Muslim women. Not only Muslims, but BJP police on the instructions of the BJP leaders also making cases against liberal politicians, members of civil society, journalists, TV anchors and human activists who are protesting and raising their voices against BJP racists actions. The individual Indians are making video clips of torturing and killing of Muslims, these horrific clips are viral all over the world. Yet, it is so unfortunate that the world powers and the United Nations except some lip service not taking any serious action against this Indian racist government and its brutal actions against 300 million Muslims in India. Kashmir has been under the lockdown for the last 250 days. International media is banned to visit Kashmir to see the ground realities therefore the world doesn’t know the human conditions in Kashmir. Despite extreme agitations and demonstrations on the streets in almost every state of India against the changes in citizenship acts in Indian Constitution, the majority ruling BJP parliamentarians managed to change the acts and Modi Government now planning to take barbaric actions to put Muslims into the camps and force them to leave India to neighboring countries particularly in Bangladesh and Pakistan. If this happens the world will face a horrific war between India and Pakistan which may trigger the use of nuclear weapons as both countries have the deadliest nuclear weapons. Therefore, the world must investigate this chaos India has created now behind the guise of the Coronavirus pandemic https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2004/S00038/indias-ruling-party-leaders-racist-remarks-against-muslims-must-be-slammed.htm

2.     Mosque vandalized: Apr., 5, 2020: On Saturday morning, a video of a small mosque inside a graveyard in Mukhmelpur village in Alipur, North West Delhi, went viral on social media. In the video, it appeared the mosque had been vandalised – there are bricks strewn about, furniture apears to have been smashed and the roof of the structure has been partially burnt. Mukhmelpur, 12 kilometres from the Haryana border, had a recorded population of 4,911 in the 2011 census and,  according to a police official, houses around 500 Muslims and roughly 5,000 Hindus today. The mosque, situated inside a graveyard, is used to offer “janaza”, a prayer before the burial of the dead in accordance with Islam, the police said. One local resident who declined to be identified told The Wire the video doing the rounds on social media was authentic. It was shot Saturday morning at 7 am and shows the vandalised mosque. Though initially reluctant to speak, he said that a group of 15-20 men came to the mosque on Friday night and vandalised it.  “They vandalised the mosque because they think we will come in huge numbers to offer namaz and spread coronavirus. But the truth is, since coronavirus has spread, not more than two or three persons have been using the mosque,” he said. Talking of a “compromise”, We’ve been trying to reach a compromise since last night…if you saw the video on YouTube, you must have seen the state of the mosque. Whenever something like this happens, we lock our homes.).”“At night, we heard noises of something being broken. It was in the morning that we saw that it was the mosque,” he said. https://thewire.in/communalism/alipur-mosque-vandalised-delhi

3.     Assam Tribunals: Apr., 6, 2020: Members of official tribunals, set up in Assam to decide who was an Indian citizen and who was not, have said they felt pressured to declare Muslims non-citizens as the government seeks to expel illegal migrants, according to a dispatch published in The New York Times Saturday.The newspaper said it interviewed one current and five former members of the Assam tribunals that review suspected foreigners. The five former members said they had felt pressured by the government to declare Muslims to be non-citizens, with three of them saying that they were fired because they did not do so.“I was punished,” Mamoni Rajkumari, a 54-year-old lawyer who spent nearly two years on the tribunal and was among the dismissed members, was quoted as saying by the Times. In addition to the tribunals, which Assam has operated for decades, the state has also recently completed a broader, separate review of every resident’s paperwork to determine if they were citizens.That review found that nearly two million of Assam’s 33 million residents, many of them desperately poor, were possibly foreigners. Now this group — which is disproportionately Muslim — is potentially stateless, the dispatch said. “What’s happening in Assam is a preview of what may be coming to India as a whole as Prime Minister Narendra Modi tries to pull the country away from its foundation as a secular, multicultural nation and turn it into a more overtly Hindu state,” The times correspondents — Karan Deep Singh and Suhasini Raj — wrote in their joint dispatch.  What’s more, the choice of who is labeled a suspected foreigner seems to have a religious bias to it, with a much higher percentage of Muslims sent to the tribunals than Hindus, according to Ms. Rajkumari and the tribunal members interviewed. He said the pressure was clear: “You have to declare ‘foreigners’ means you have to declare the Muslims,” he said.     Most of the migrants in Assam came from Bangladesh, at one time or another. Many have lived in Assam for generations, the descendants of economic migrants from decades ago, it was pointed out. And many are illiterate and poor, often with no idea how to read the papers vital to proving a citizenship claim, and keeping them out of jail. Dozens of people in Assam whose citizenship has been questioned have killed themselves, according to Indian media reports. Countless others fear being expelled from India or thrown in jail. Meanwhile, the government is expanding its capacity to incarcerate foreigners; an enormous detention facility is under construction in the Goalpara district of Assam, where up to 3,000 people are likely to be held. The compound, set to open in a few months, has thick, high walls on the periphery, watchtowers in every corner, separate sections for men and women, and an infirmary, the Times said https://www.aaj.tv/english/latest/india-pressured-assam-citizenship-tribunal-members-to-declare-muslims-non-citizens-nyt/

4.     Indian State and Muslims: Apr., 7, 2020: The Muslim world and the world represented by United Nations failed to realise that the forced cum paid mass conversion of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism named “GHAR WAPSI”, was the beginning of a sinister agenda – the Hindutva. BJP has trashed the secular soul of Indian constitution. Senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy told a long-form documentary correspondent Isobel Young, that “Muslims are a different category”, “they are not equal to Hindus”, “they are not equal among equals in Indian constitution”and “any country that has 30% Muslims is in trouble.” Swamy was challenged that it constituted hatred and discrimination against 200 million Muslims and a violation of article 14 of Indian constitution. Subramanian Swamy answered that equality was among equals and Muslims were not equal to Hindus. According to him article 14 of Indian constitution was in line with the Citizenship Bill and the majority in the country supported BJP. In fact BJP had fulfilled one of its election promises. United Nations represents the ‘peoples of the world’ as equal people. It has to take cognizance of this erring behaviour of Indian State. Muslims countries and Muslims living in the world shall have to seek audience with the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, for a determination whether Indian State is run by people who are unmindful of their Charter obligations and its membership of UN needs to be suspended. Muslim countries and other members of the UN may have gambled in the past and turned away from holding India accountable for her non-compliance of the UN resolutions on Kashmir, calling Muslim as a different category and not equal amongst Hindus in India, is a litmus test for every member of the United Nations. Would the world entertain Narendra Damodardas Modias another Hitler of Germany and Frederik Willem de Klerk of South Africa or step forward and halt his sinister fascist political ideology? It is a test for the world in the days ahead. The statement of Subramanian Swamycould be a new template of Indian policy in Kashmir. On 5 August 2019, Government of India has acted savagely in its administered Part of Jammu and Kashmir. It violated UN Security Council Resolution of 21 April 1948, by deploying 900,000 soldiers and enforced a lockdown of people from 5 August 2019. It is a violation of 3 restraints placed on the number, behaviour and location of Indian forces. India did not stop here. On 31 October 2019 India violated the UN SC resolution of 30 March 1951. It disturbed the territorial integrity of the State and re-occupied it, as part of Indian Union. The action is unlawful and has no merit. India rightfully seems to have been encouraged by its performance at WION Conference on 5 March 2020 in Dubai. It discussed Kashmir as its ‘internal matter’ and on 31 March 2020 under the cover of Covid-19 lockdown Government of India issued a notification designed to change the demography of the State to influence Plebiscite in future. It has disabled the State Legislature on the question of 92 year State Subject Law and brought in new domicile laws to allow non State Subjects into Kashmir and settle down with citizenship rights. This will infringe upon the rights of displaced Kashmiris guaranteed in Para 12 and 14 of UN SC resolution of 21 April 1948. On 3 April 2020 Government has issued a notification and has suspended Telecommunication Services to a population under a lockdown from 5 August 2019 and now faced with a new lockdown due to threat of Covid-19. Indian Government has started behaving as a soulless state and is punishing Kashmiris with no holds barred. Kashmir needs urgent world and UN attention. The most important thing to point out is that The Gazette notification has changed the KashmirState’s own Ranbir Penal Code into The Indian Penal Code, for the first time in the history of the State. Even so, Section 18 in The Indian Penal Code reads as “India”.—“India” means the territory of India excluding the State of Jammu and Kashmir.” https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/04/06/kashmir-muslims-of-india-behaviour-of-indian-state-and-un-charter/

5.     US and BJP: Apr., 8, 2020: America's success in delivering enviable living standards while protecting human rights has made it the moral gold standard of the world, inspiring global movements for social justice, freedom, and democracy. But the flip side is that when America departs from these principles, it hands a license to other countries to do the same. India is living proof. Even before President Donald Trump brought nativism front and center in U.S. politics, India was rummaging through American jurisprudence for intellectual ammo to justify similar policies. The world's second-most-populous country experienced a massive influx of. How did India's highest court justify all this? By quoting an entire passage from the notorious 1889 ruling Chae Chan Ping v. United States, in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Chinese Exclusion Act and declared that "the highest duty of a nation" is to "give security against foreign aggression and encroachment," including from "vast hordes" of foreigners "crowding in upon us." This is exactly how Trump characterizes Central American refugees—and how Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi characterizes Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants. Moreover, just as Trump is expanding detention camps to house asylum-seekers who illegally cross the border, the Modi government is building a vast network of detention camps to segregate Indian Muslims who can't prove that their ancestors hailed from India. The Modi government is also deploying well-meaning U.S. policies for immoral ends. Recently, Modi rammed through India's Parliament something called the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which will hand mass amnesty to nearly every religious refugee from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh living illegally in India, unless the refugees are Muslim. Such a religious test for citizenship has generated massive protests in India and condemnation abroad. But Modi's cheerleaders claim that the CAA is no different from the Lautenberg Amendment, an obscure American law that was sponsored by the eponymous Democratic senator from New Jersey and passed in 1990 to hand Soviet Jews and Christians an expedited pathway to refugee status. The concern at that time was that the political instability generated by the fall of the USSR would make these groups—but especially Jews—even more vulnerable to persecution by fellow citizens and new regimes. (Lautenberg was subsequently expanded to include Iranian Jews, Christians, and Baha'is.) Today, Modi's supporters claim that there is no functional difference between the Lautenberg Amendment and the CAA, because both laws create special channels for some religiously persecuted minorities without eliminating existing channels for any group. While it would certainly be better if Lautenberg had been written in a religiously neutral fashion, this comparison has holes bigger than the Khyber Pass. The most obvious one is that Lautenberg wasn't meant to cater to dominant religious prejudices, while the CAA is a blatant attempt to feed them. Moreover, Lautenberg aimed to admit more refugees into America, not to create a discriminatory standard for those inside the country. When it comes to attaining U.S. citizenship, one uniform rule applies for everyone, regardless of race, caste, creed, religion, or nationality. Most importantly, America had "normal channels" to accept refugees when Lautenberg was passed, while India does not. Modi would have found a way to advance his Hindu nationalist agenda no matter what. But his job becomes a whole lot easier when he can enlist American laws to make his case for him. https://reason.com/2020/04/07/indias-modi-imports-american-discrimination/

6.     Muslim stigmatized: Apr., 11, 2020:  “If the communal propaganda on corona virus continues like this we might see HINDU WATER and MUSLIM WATER shops at every railway station VERY SOON!” read his tweet. This might come across as an exaggerated statement, but one also cannot deny that propaganda against Muslims on social media and television has become venomous. The results of these latest doses of prejudice around coronavirus are already showing. In Haldwani, Muslim fruit sellers, unlike their Hindu counterparts, were forced to shut their shops by a group of people. A social media video appeared to show a Resident Welfare Association agreeing to ban Muslim vendors and workers from their gated society. In a village in Mangalore, posters came up stating that “no Muslim trader is allowed into the village till the coronavirus has completely gone away. Signed: All Hindus, Kolya”. Several Muslim truck drivers were beaten up by a mob in Arunachal Pradesh. Among the many rumours about Muslims floating around, one was not to accept any cash from Muslims.  What Muslims are effectively facing now is a new form of concerted, deliberate economic marginalisation. Having been largely shut out of the formal sector, many Muslims depend on the informal sector and self-employment for their livelihood. In urban areas, the share of Muslims in self-employment is 50 per cent, compared to 33 per cent among Hindus, according to NSSO (2009-10). These are the vendors and workers being barred by gated colonies and truckers and fruit sellers harassed by mobs. Only 27 per cent of Muslims are  n salaried/regular wage jobs, as compared to 43 per cent of Hindus and 45 per cent of Christians. Just 30 per cent of Muslim male workers have completed ‘secondary and above’ education in urban areas, compared with 58 per cent for both Christians and Sikhs, and 56 per cent for Hindus.The gig economy is the last resort for Muslims who have been pushed to the margins owing to a history of systematic discrimination. The share of Muslim IPS officers is 4 per cent, IAS officers is 3 per cent, and IFS officers is less than 2 per cent, according to the Sacchar Committee report which was published in 2006. The intake of new Muslim officers in the government via the UPSC every year still hovers around 4-5 per cent, much lower than their 14 per cent population share. So these numbers would not have changed significantly more than a decade after the report came out. Even in other government jobs, Muslims lag far behind. In railways, the largest employer in India, Muslims only make up 4.5 per cent of total employees, of whom 98.7 per cent are positioned at lower levels, according to census 2011. In the top jobs of the corporate sector, Muslims account for only 3 per cent.   What’s worse is that Muslims have the worst social mobility among all communities. While the upward mobility of Dalits and Adivasis have improved in recent decades, it has actually dropped for Muslims. If this discrimination against working class Muslims, who are already suffering from the general depression, takes hold in society and becomes widespread, the consequences would be devastating. Hindus and Muslims often live in segregated clusters in urban areas, but they are intertwined by the web of economic transactions. If that goes away, we are looking at pockets of apartheid in our country. That might sound alarmist but the psychological worlds of Muslims and Hindus have already become strikingly separate. The thoughts, ideas and feelings of an ordinary Hindu is worlds apart from that of an ordinary Muslim. To think that this psychological distance wouldn’t soon translate into social and economic distance would be naïve. Apartheid was built not so much on physical barriers as on ideology. Many scholars understood the beliefs undergirding apartheid from the structural theory of racism, which stated that racist prejudice is both a product and cause of racist structures. Prejudice must be constantly produced to uphold and justify the racist structure of dominance.  The fairly explicit goal of Hindutva has always been the political marginalisation of Muslims. But many leaders of the Hindu Right have repeatedly emphasised that in other social and economic spheres, they want the betterment of Muslims. In 2014, Modi admitted to being a Hindu nationalist, didn’t give more than bare tokenistic seats to Muslims, but offered them economic prosperity. Speaking to the Ummat Business conclave, he spoke of how certain small businesses dominated by Muslims have benefited from his rule in Gujarat. Modi said his vision was security, equity and prosperity for everyone. “With the help of research and ready raw material, kite business in Gujarat has prospered from a turnover of Rs 30-35 crore a decade ago to Rs 700 crore now,” he claimed, adding that it led to the overall prosperity of the Muslim community. But while the Hindu right is assiduously trying to integrate Dalits into the Hindu society, and with Dalits increasingly reciprocating with their votes, it is Muslims who are now sought to be separated; excised not just from shared nationhood but also from a shared society. If we reach that place, we would finally have become two separate nations, living among mutual incomprehension and mistrust, and Jinnah would have been validated. . https://theprint.in/opinion/covid-an-excuse-to-push-indian-muslims-out-of-informal-sector-jobs-apartheid-the-next-step/398236/

7.     JNU Scholar arrested: Apr., 12, 2020: Manipur police have arrested a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) research scholar for writing an article criticizing the government in a local daily Scholar Chingiz Khan, who is pursuing PhD in History at JNU wrote an article titled “Political ploy to push Muslims into marginalization” in a Manipuri Daily, Ichel Express.Khan in his article reportedly pointed out the ‘discrimination’ of the Manipur government policies towards the Pangal Muslim community in the state. He slammed the BJP government for carrying out eviction drive at Khetri Bengoon Awa Ching. Manipur police claimed that the article is “inciting communal disharmony,” Maktoob reported.On Friday, JNU Students’ Union president Aishe Ghosh demanded the release of Chingiz Khan by tweeting a hashtag #ReleaseChingishKhan Delhi Association of Manipur Muslim Students, has condemned “this act of assaulting democratic values and the right of an individual”.  https://nenow.in/north-east-news/manipur/manipur-jnu-scholar-arrested-for-writing-article-criticizing-bjp-govt.html

8.     Hindu right wing and Muslims: Apr., 14, 2020: The campaign uses hashtags like #CoronaJihad, #CrushTablighiSpitters, #MuslimMeaningTerrorist, and #BioJihad to spread misinformation on platforms like Facebook and Twitter That meeting and the revelation that members of the group tested positive for coronavirus was the spark that kickstarted a virulent hate speech campaign online that has seen far-right Hindu nationalists weaponize Facebook and Twitter to attack and threaten Muslims in India.That campaign, baseless and hateful, claims that Muslims are purposely infecting swathes of the Indian population. The campaign uses hashtags like #CoronaJihad, #CrushTablighiSpitters, #MuslimMeaningTerrorist, and #BioJihad on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The posts are being shared with hundreds of millions of people by supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his political party. The campaign shows how fears about the spread of the coronavirus have merged with longstanding Islamophobia in India, putting the lives of India’s 200 million Muslims at risk. Activists in India say they have been flagging the issue with both Facebook and Twitter for weeks, but that very little has been done to stop the spread of the hate speech. “I really don't think that any of the platforms have an excuse because it’d be one thing if they were inundated like everybody else, wondering what's happening, but they've been receiving reports of many of these individual pages and individual handles and this content way before this,” Thenmozhi Soundararajan, the executive director of Equality Labs, a South Asian community technology organization, told VICE News. “And the response has not been appropriate given the gravity and the danger of the speech   Modi and the ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment for some time, but the current wave of Islamophobia began after authorities pinpointed the Tablighi Jamaat meeting in early March as a source of many infections in India.  Now, some of the same right-wing figures who used social media to amplify attacks on the Muslim community during last year’s controversy over the Citizenship Amendment Act, which granted non-Muslim immigrants to India citizenship, are using the Tablighi Jamaat meeting to claim that Muslims are purposely spreading coronavirus across the country. In addition to hashtags, fake videos purporting to show Muslims purposely sneezing on people are being shared widely on Twitter and Facebook. One of the most popular videos being shared claims to show a Muslim man intentionally coughing on somebody. One tweet showing the video was retweeted more than 4,300 times before it was removed. The account that posted it, however, remains active, posting obviously anti-Muslim content. The video, of course, is fake, and was filmed in Thailand long before the pandemic began, but that didn’t stop the videos being shared by verified accounts linked to the BJP.  The hateful accusations against India’s Muslim population have been shared by BJP officials, national television channels and journalists aligned with the government. Analysis by Equality Labs shows that the groups sharing the anti-Muslim hashtags on Facebook are supporters of Modi and the BJP, or groups related to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organization. They include the Indian Defense Force (2.8 million followers), BJP For India Page (580,000 followers), and West Bengal BJP Supporters (350,000 followers). According to data from the social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle, between March 29 and April 3 the #coronajihad hashtag alone has had over 249,733 interactions on Facebook. On Twitter, almost 300,000 conversations took place with the #coronajihad hashtag, with over 700,000 accounts engaging in those conversations, according to data from social media analysis tool TalkWalker. The potential reach of those conversations was 170 million accounts.  Facebook said it had removed a number of hashtags flagged by Equality Labs, and searches on the platform for #coronajihad and several other hashtags did not return results on Friday morning — but there are many other similar hashtags still in use on Facebook.  Modi, the BJP, and its social media army have been leveraging the power of social media for years to cement its position as the most popular party in the country and to push anti-Muslim sentiment. The BJP has become adept at hiding its behavior to give the party and the prime minister plausible deniability. But there are signs the social media attacks on Muslims in recent weeks were coordinated.   https://www.vice.com/en_asia/article/akwmyj/indias-hindu-nationalists-are-inciting-hate-by-claiming-muslims-are-spreading-coronavirus

9.     Indian Media: Apr., 15, 2020:. Activist Kavita Krishnan’s video tirade against India Today channel’s news editor Rahul Kanwal for his coronavirus show titled ‘Madrasa Hotspots’ is spot on. The one thing Indian media is not doing is journalism. In fact, very few people are doing journalism today. Channels from Zee News, Aaj Tak to Network18 like to add the word ‘jihad’ to everything. Corona jihad or zameen jihad, love jihad, arthik jihad, and whatnot. But if anyone is waging a holy war today, it is Indian media’s jihad against Indian Muslims and Islam. The year 2014 was a watershed moment in India. Not just because Narendra Modi became the prime minister with an absolute majority but because the Indian media, as it functioned until then, metamorphosed from a pigeon — a messenger of truth and facts — to a hyena, one that serves its own interest fuelled by an insatiable greed that drives it to devour its prey alive, sometimes ripping it apart, while it sniggers. Today’s news media, especially the prime time debates, is brutal, almost barbaric, with little to no regard for ethics and morality. Journalism is now endangered and what’s masquerading in its name is business — with open display of bigotry and hate against Muslims and other minorities. It not only builds its viewership base by hook or crook to more advertising money but it also doubles up as a PR firm, serving the interest of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to show it as the saviour of India. And what’s the flavour of the season in the Indian media’s bid to do the bidding for the BJP? An extra large scoop of Islamophobia with some sprinkling on top — Tablighi Jamaat conspiracy theories (from spitting to shitting), a dash of anti-nationalism reserved for Muslims who are called more Pakistani than Indian, a huge dollop of ISIS connection (especially in the land of Malayalis), and a generous serving of demonisation through constant use of rhetorics like jihad, halala, triple talaq, beef eaters, and anything that a devious mind can conjure (‘Muslims in India are deliberately spreading the coronavirus’    https://theprint.in/opinion/indian-media-waging-holy-war-against-muslims-hyenas/400407/

10.            USCRIF: Apr., 15, 2020: The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has condemned the continued scapegoating and attacks of Muslims in India due to false rumors over the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19), often accompanied by dangerous rhetoric by politicians  Meanwhile, the COVID-19 outbreak in India has set off a series of attacks against Muslims across the Country, as Modi’s Hindu nationalist government is claiming that Muslims are spreading the virus. In a report, the leading US daily “The New York Times” said that some Hindu nationalist politicians and their supporters are eagerly piling on anti-Muslim sentiments that have been building in recent years under the Modi’s government. The British daily newspaper “The Guardian” in its story titled “Coronavirus conspiracy theories targeting Muslims spread in India” has also highlighted the plight of the Indian Muslims amid the false accusations. Separately, the Muslim leaders have expressed serious concern over the new wave of hatred against Indian Muslims. The Chairman of the Islamic Center of India Khalid Rasheed said that if you present the Coronavirus Cases based on somebody’s religion in your media briefings, it creates a big divide.Khalid Rasheed said that Coronavirus may die but the virus of communal disharmony will be hard to kill when this is over. https://dnd.com.pk/uscirf-condemns-stigmatization-of-indian-muslims-amid-covid-19-outbreak/186380

11.            Apartheid: Apr., 17, 2020: In what many are calling a case of "apartheid" during a global pandemic, a government-run hospital in Ahmedabad, the main city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, has segregated coronavirus patients based on their religion, claiming the order came from the government."Generally, there are separate wards for male and female patients. But here, we have made separate wards for Hindu and Muslim patients. It is a decision of the government and you can ask them," Dr Gunvant H Rathod, the medical superintendent of Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, told The Indian Express newspaper in its report on Wednesday. The Gujarat state is governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also governs the country. Narendra Modi was the state's chief minister for nearly 13 straight years from 2001 before he became India's prime minister in 2014. USCIRF is concerned with reports of Hindu & Muslim patients separated into separate hospital wards in #Gujarat. Such actions only help to further increase ongoing stigmatization of Muslims in #India and exacerbate false rumors of Muslims spreading #COVID19 https://indianexpress.com/article/coronavirus/ahmedabad-covid-19-coronavirus-hospital-ward-6363040 . However, in The Indian Express report, a patient was quoted as saying, "On Sunday night, the names of 28 men admitted in the first ward (A-4) were called out. We were then shifted to another ward (C-4).""While we were not told why we were being shifted, all the names that were called out belonged to one community. We spoke to one staff member in our ward and he said this   \/According to a doctor quoted in another report by The Hindu newspaper, "Certain patients from the majority community were not comfortable being in the same ward with patients of the minority community.""After some patients complained, it was decided to segregate them on temporary basis," the doctor told the newspaper on condition of anonymity.When Ahmedabad-based sociologist Ghanashyam Shah was asked by Al Jazeera if the hospital segregating patients according to their religion amounted to apartheid, he replied, "Absolutely.""Knowing Gujarat, I am not surprised it has happened," he said. "It is a very obvious kind of thing. The fake news propaganda around Muslims spreading the virus is probably rampant across India. But I can see it is visible in Gujarat."Shah was alluding to a widespread Islamophobia fuelled by the coronavirus pandemic, especially after Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary group, organised a congregation in New Delhi in March.  Earlier this month, the World Health Organization had warned against any religious profiling of coronavirus patients by the governments across the world. "Having COVID-19 is not anybody's fault. Every case is a victim. It is very important that we do not profile the cases on the basis of racial, religious and ethnic lines," WHO's emergency program director Mike Ryan had said.  . https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/india-hospital-segregates-muslim-hindu-coronavirus-patients-200416080547650.html

12.            Indians in GCC: Apr., 17, 2020: Saudi Scholar Abidi Zahrani has proposed that militant Hindus involved in spreading hatred and committing crimes against the Muslims should be sent back to India from Gulf countries. In a tweet Saudi Scholar Abidi Zahrani has said that Gulf States host millions of Indians, some of whom are infected with COVID-19 are treated free of charge regardless of their faith while fascist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu terrorist gangs while following the Hindutva agenda are committing crimes against it own Muslim citizens. Abidi Zahrani said “I propose to all respected followers to list all militant Hindus who are working in the GCC and spreading hate against Islam, Muslims or out beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), so it will be easy to track by showing copies of their bio”. http://www.sabahnews.net/english/archives/28267

13.            Kashmiri workers attached: Apr., 18, 2020: Three Kashmiri labourers attacked in Barot village in the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh on Saturday by a group of unidentified locals apparently fearful of the coronavirus are anxious to return home as they continue to fear for their safety.The three Kashmiri labourers – among a group of nine Gujjars from Banihal who had come to Barot to work on a transmission tower in November – claimed that they were subjected to an unprovoked attack at their place of residence. The assailants also hurled obscenities and warned them to leave the place or bear the consequences, claimed 60-year-old Abdullah. Even after attacking the labourers with cricket bats, the men allegedly followed them to the government hospital and threatened them while calling them “aatankwadi (terrorists)”. “They hate us because we are Muslims,” said Bahaardeen Naik, a 32-year-old victim, who sustained injuries in his arm. Abdullah, who was severely beaten, is bedridden as a result. “I cannot work now, I feel like I am crippled,” he said, speaking to The Wire. On April 11, at around 10:30 pm, Naik and eight other workers were sleeping in two separate rooms when the men broke into their house and attacked them. “They started thrashing us without telling us the reason,” Naik said. “I tried to escape and ran out crying for help, while others were struggling to get rid of them,” he said. Joy Choudhary, a digital marketing consultant, who lives half a kilometre away from the labourers, was the first person to come to their rescue after Naik narrated the whole incident to him. “I saw his right hand severely injured when he ran for help towards my place,” said Choudhary. After that Choudhary, with the help of another friend, reached the place of the incident and saw the labourers lying on the road with injuries on different parts on their bodies. “We then took them to the hospital,” .“The premises where the labourers were residing is adjacent to the Durga Mata Mandir. Some people already had issues about the labourers living there,” said Chaudhary. “They are Muslims and their passage is through the temple, so the locals were troubled by that. They thought they [the labourers] were polluting the place and there is already a campaign in the media about it as well,” he said. Advocate Deshraj, a lawyer who lives near Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, however, said that the attack against the labourers was communal in nature as the locals felt that Muslims are responsible for spreading the coronavirus. “It is a result of the hate campaign which is creating a communal divide between two communities,” he said. “There is no other reason,” he said. “The police are calling it an altercation, which is not the case.” “We have not seen such cases from here before this, but what is being circulated on social media and also by certain sections of the media, has made a target out of these laborers right now,” he said. “People here have also circulated posters about not providing rooms to Muslims on the grounds that they are responsible for spreading the coronavirus,” he added. The accused got bail within 24 hours of the incident. https://thewire.in/communalism/himachal-pradesh-kashmiri-labourers-attacked

14.            GCC: Apr., 19, 2020: This is because the way Islamofobia, communalism and hate mongering against Islam and Muslims is being telecast on the Indian TV sets under state patronage; it definitely has ‘disturbed the stars.’ In a tweet Mr Zahrani said; “Gulf States host millions of Hindus, some of whom are infected with COVID-19 and are treated free of charge regardless of their faith while fascist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu terrorist gangs while following the Hindutva agenda are committing crimes against its own Muslim citizens.” Princess Qassimi while responding to a series of “Islamophobic posts” on the micro blog Twitter said anyone who is “openly racist and discriminatory in the UAE will be fined and made to leave” immediately.The UAE royalty was responding to twitter posts of a Hindu Indian living in UAE targeting Muslims over the March congregation of Tablighi Jamaat in New Delhi. He allegedly used abusive language against the Tablighis, calling them “radical Islamist terrorists”. This micro blogger in his earlier tweet had said, all Islamic organizations “should be kept on vigilant watch or barred” as they only spread violence and unrest. The epic center of the hate mongering is in India. This is because some Indians have labeled the faith of Corona virus to Islam and Muslims are treated as terrorists fighting the Corona Jihad  This is because the way Islamofobia, communalism and hate mongering against Islam and Muslims is being telecast on the Indian TV sets under state patronage; it definitely has ‘disturbed the stars. The first statement is made by a scholar from Saudi Arabia Mr. Abidi Zahrani who has proposed that Hindus involved in spreading hatred and committing crimes against the Muslims should be sent back to India from GCC countries. In a tweet Mr Zahrani said; “Gulf States host millions of Hindus, some of whom are infected with COVID-19 and are treated free of charge regardless of their faith while fascist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu terrorist gangs while following the Hindutva agenda are committing crimes against its own Muslim citizens.”Mr Abidi Zahrani further said; “I propose to the respected followers of Islam to list out all the Hindus who are working in the GCC region and spreading hate against Islam, Muslims or our beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), to track them and initiate the process to send them back to India. The second statement that comes from Princess Hend Al Qassimi, a member of the royal family of United Arab Emirates is poignantly haunting. Princess Qassimi said, though the ruling family of UAE is “friends with Indians”, but hate Islam hate Muslims campaign is “not welcome” Princess Qassimi while responding to a series of “Islamophobic posts” on the micro blog Twitter said anyone who is “openly racist and discriminatory in the UAE will be fined and made to leave” immediately.

15.            The UAE royalty was responding to twitter posts of a Hindu Indian living in UAE targeting Muslims over the March congregation of Tablighi Jamaat in New Delhi. He allegedly used abusive language against the Tablighis, calling them “radical Islamist terrorists”. This micro blogger in his earlier tweet had said, all Islamic organizations “should be kept on vigilant watch or barred” as they only spread violence and unrest. Taking a note of such unsavory tweets, the UAE royal princess slammed the micro blogger and giving stern warning that such kind of people “will not go unnoticed.”’ “All employees are paid to work, no one comes for free. You make your bread and butter from this land which you scorn and your ridicule will not go unnoticed,” she wrote  TN Ninan, Chairman of Business Standard and a well regard journalist, has boldly said that marginalization of Muslims has become a ‘jan-andolan’ in India.This statement is somewhat true. Abusing Muslims and denigrating Islam has become the pet theme of the large section of Indian media. This narrative has a cascading impact on the world wide Indians who live on the staple diet and feed on Indian media. The epic center of the hate mongering is in India. This is because some Indians have labeled the faith of Corona virus to Islam and Muslims are treated as terrorists fighting the Corona JihadIndia’s elite that’s currently gleefully watching the rants of the wounded civilization on their television sets, are taking solace that they are winning the battle in the ‘clash of civilization.’ Little they realize that India rests in the soft belly of the Islam arch, can only survive like a tongue between the jowls.To cut the story short, the alarming voices have started ringing the bells. The seed of hatred sown in the country in the garb of fight against COVID-19 will have to be redeemed long after this unseen virus goes into oblivion. https://theindianawaaz.com/tendency-of-hate-muslims-hate-islam-in-india-has-resonance-in-gulf-countries/

16.            Media under attack in India : Apr., 19, 2020: “Writing about issues like Delhi carnage of February 22, poor management of COVID-19 by BJP government or penning facts about Indian Kashmir (read as Indian Occupied Kashmir) is considered as too sensitive and can cause you to face perilous state if you are a writer or a journalist and you are living in India” . A creeping self-censorship is the ultimate outcome of crippling circumstances those are compelling Indian journalists to stay silent if they wish to work without taking risk of untimely seizure of their professional careers or unseen risks revolving around their families. However, there are people who courageously penning and speaking without fear of intimidation and purge but these isolated voices are becoming “news”. Cases are being registered against those reporters and writers who are reporting about government’s dealing with COVID-19 situation that left thousands of Indians dead while going back to their native places by foot due to abrupt curfew like Lockdown was clamped by Modi Sarkar, leaving over 3 million workers stranded and stuck in big cities without money, food and work. Attacks on media freedom, especially during the Covid-19 crises, endangers not just free speech, but the public’s right to information. In a recent case raised by internationally acclaimed Indian Kashmiri journalist Gowhar Geelani, an IoK based journalist Peerada Ashiq working for The Hindu is being harassed by agencies. Peerzada Ashiq is in trouble for a report published in daily The Hindu on April 15, 2020 titled “Kashmir halts sample collection after 5,000 test kits ‘mysteriously’ diverted to Jammu”. Which said” The Directorate of Health Services (DHS), Kashmir, has stopped taking samples from potentially infected persons in the Valley after a senior health official bypassed directions and diverted a Srinagar-bound consignment of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) allotted five boxes, carrying 5,000 test kits, to Jammu. Official sources said the alarm was raised by top health officials in Srinagar besides officials in-charge of the COVID-19 crisis in the Divisional Commissioner’s office when a cargo plane arrived in Srinagar on Tuesday morning and failed to deliver the 5,000 testing kits “desperately required in the Valley”.It was only following the intervention of Chief Secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam that 4,000 test kits were airlifted from Jammu to Srinagar around 4 p.m. on Tuesday. Sources said Jitendra Mehta of the National Health Mission, who advises Divisional Commissioner Pandurang K. Pole on procurements, diverted the testing kits to Jammu. “It’s being looked into if it was a goof-up or a deliberate attempt,” an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.” After above-mentioned report, writer of story Peerzada Ashiq was questioned by different agencies and Directorial of Information called his story as “Fake” although story was based on facts with citing different personalities Peerzada Ashiq had been called before in August and November 2019 by agencies because he wrote to unearth corruption in administrative system if Indian Kashmir (IoK). Kashmiri journalist Gowhar Geelani in one of his video clip stated that intimidation and harassment of Kashmir journalists have become a new normal and he cited different cases of harassment with Kashmiri journalists including with Hakim Irfan (Economic Times), Basharat Masood (Indian Express), Naseer Ganai (The Outlook), Aqib Javed (The Observer), Irfan Ali and Malik Haroon Nabi.  He stated that counter insurgency department, police and different other agencies are busy in harassing journalists for writing facts what Kashmir. One should remember what happened last week with Siddharth Varadarajan who is facing wrath of BJP government because an article published by The Wire pointed out that “Indian believers” more generally have been late to adopt precautions and avoid congregation, recalling UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s plans, as late as March 18, to proceed with a religious fair at Ayodhya and his flouting of the national lockdown and social distancing norms by taking part in a religious ceremony along with others on March 25. Two FIRs were filed against Siddharth Varadarajan under various sections of the law on April 1, one on a complaint by a resident of Ayodhya and the other on the basis of a complaint by the SHO of the Kotwali Nagar police station, Faizabad. The FIRs were followed up with a gross display of intimidation on April 10 when policemen arrived in a black SUV with no number plates at Varadarajan’s residence in Delhi to issue a legal notice ordering him to appear in Ayodhya on April 14 at 10 am. That the UP government sent policemen driving across 700 kilometres during the national lockdown to issue this summons when the postal system is still operational speaks volumes for its priorities. The Wire, along with other independent media and journalists, has been courageous and consistent in continuing to present the facts. The police action against The Wire also comes against the backdrop of the demonization of Muslims in a section of the media as being responsible for the spread of the novel coronavirus in India. On April 6, the WHO felt the need to reiterate the principle that media should avoid religious or other profiling of COVID-19 cases The complaint in this FIR is that Harvajan Goud came across a tweet by one Siddharth on social media and was “pained to see how someone had written such false statement” on his chief minister. The complainant therefore asked for the IT act to be invoked. No specific detail of any tweet is provided.   or its severity or magnitude, leading to panic’.FIR 0268/2020 also filed on April 1, 2020 under Sections 188 and 505 (2) by Nitish Kumar Shrivastav, Inspector in Charge, Kotwali Nagar, Faizabad, against the Editor of The Wire, (name and address unknown) notes that: (translation from Hindi) On that day it came to his notice that during the lockdown, the Editor of the Wire, with an intent to spread rumours and enmity, published the following on his ‘blog’:(reproduced in English): “On the day the Tablighi Jamaat event was held, Yogi Adityanath insisted that a large fair planned for Ayodhya on the occasion of Ram Navami from March 25 to April 2 would proceed as usual while Acharya Paramhans said that ‘Lord Ram would protect devotees from the coronavirus”. One day after Modi announced the “curfew like” national lockdown on March 24, Adityanath violated the official guidelines to take part in a religious ceremony in Ayodhya along with dozens of people.”(translated from Hindi): This is the way during the lockdown caused by the corona pandemic and the imposition of Sec 144, the improper remarks by the Wire Editor against Yogi Adityanath caused anger among the general public. This comes under Sec 188/505 (2) of the IPC. This FIR does not mention any specific article but the quoted passage appears to have been taken from a story titled ‘As COVID-19 Cases Spike in Nizamuddin, Nehru Stadium in Delhi to Become Quarantine Centre’ published in The Wire on March 31, 202.The story as it stood at the time the FIR was lodged was factually correct in every respect, and the two primary claims about Adityanath – that his government initially had every intention of going ahead with the Ram Navami mela in Ayodhya from March 25 despite the fear of COVID-19, and that he took part in a religious gathering in Ayodhya on March 25 despite the lockdown —  have been reported by multiple news outlets. Strong reaction over FIRs against Siddharth Varadarajan came from civil society. Several internationally renowned jurists, scholars, activists, artists and acclaimed public figures have already signed a statement, criticizing draconian behavior of Indian State against journalists who write truth. Those who signed statement include Justice Madan B. Lokur, Pranab Bardhan, Arjun Appadurai, Sheldon Pollock, Barbara Harriss White, Patricia Jeffery, James Manor, Ashutosh Varshney, Christophe Jaffrelot, Sumit Sarkar, Romila Thapar, Ramchandra Guha, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Seth, Nayantara Sehgal, Amol Palekar, Mallika Sarabhai, Harsh Mander, Farhan and Zoya Akhtar, Nandita Das, Prabhat Patnaik, Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav, Sandeep Pandey, Partha Chatterjee, Urvashi Butalia, Apoorvanand Jha, Harbans Mukhia. Till filling of this report, over 4,900 persons have signed an online petition to snub action against Siddharth Varadarajan. Indian intellectuals are questioning that media houses which have blatantly spewed venom, communalizing the corona virus, have just gone free and on the otherhand journalists like Siddharth Vardarajan who have been fearlessly asking questions about the misconduct by various leaders are being intimidated by filing FIRs against them. A senior journalist from Delhi Shabnam Hashmi called this behavior of government as a blatant attack on freedom of the press and condemned intimidation and demanded the quashing of the FIR against Siddharth Vardarajan. Activist Arundhati Roy who has become “Persona non grata” for New Delhi due to her bold stance in her recent interview with DW Germany said that Indian government is exploiting COVID-19 to ramp up its suppression of Muslims. She compared the government tactic to one used by the Nazis during the Holocaust. She had been voicing against censorship in India and at target board of BP since long. “The ugly practice is unchecked in India of booking journalists in fake cases, summoning them by various agencies with the aim to obfuscate truth and threatening them for dire consequences if they publish truth. This situation is attracting attention of foreign media also and now western media is reporting cases of ill behavior BJP government has towards Muslims, Dalits and independent journalists,” commented a journalist from Delhi while requesting to withhold his name because she says she has two school going daughters and she cannot take risk of their lives for being blunt and bold—- A self-censorship has already gripped Indian Media. https://dnd.com.pk/media-under-fire-in-india/186742

17.            Roy: Apr., 20, 2020: Indian novelist and political activist Arundhati Roy while calling Indian treatment of Muslims amid COVID-19 pandemic as genocidal, said India was using coronavirus against them just like typhus was used against the Jews to get ghettoize them.  Roy said the Indian government was exploiting COVID-19 to ramp up its suppression of Muslims. She said the Indian government was exploiting the coronavirus outbreak to inflame tensions between Hindus and Muslims and as a tactic reminiscent of one used by the Nazis during the Holocaust. “Its (RSS) ideologues have likened the Muslims of India to the Jews of Germany. And if you look at the way in which they are using COVID, it was very much like typhus was used against the Jews to get ghettoize them, to stigmatize them," she said. She viewed that the very strategy on part of the Hindu nationalist government would “dovetail with this illness to create something which the world should really keep its eyes on," adding that “the situation is approaching genocidal." She said COVID-19 had exposed things about India. “We are suffering, not just from COVID, but from a crisis of hatred, from a crisis of hunger." India's 1.3 billion people are currently in the midst of a six-week nationwide lockdown. The world's second-most populous nation has so far confirmed 13,835 infections of the novel coronavirus, resulting in 452 deaths, according to figures from the Johns Hopkins Institute. It is often cited as a country where the gap between official numbers and real case numbers could be particularly high.She observed that under the cover of COVID-19, the Indian government was moving to arrest young students, to fight cases against lawyers, against senior editors, against activists and intellectuals. Some of them have recently been put in jail, she added. https://www.brecorder.com/2020/04/19/590502/india-using-coronavirus-against-muslims-as-typhus-used-against-jews-arundhati/

18.            OIC: Apr., 20, 2020: The Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has condemned the unrelenting vicious Islamophobic campaign in India maligning Muslims for the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19) as well as their negative profiling in media subjecting them to discrimination and violence with impunity.In a tweet on Sunday, the OIC-IPHRC urged the Indian government to take urgent steps to stop the growing tide of Islamophobia in India and protect the rights of its persecuted Muslim minority as per its obligations under international human rights law.  https://tribune.com.pk/story/2202168/1-oic-slams-indias-vicious-islamophobic-campaign/#

19.            GCC reacts: Apr., 22, 2020: In August last year, when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) honoured Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the country’s highest civilian award, Pakistan quietly lodged a protest with the Gulf state for bestowing the person with such an honour when his government was involved in the worst human rights abuses in occupied Kashmir.The UAE ignored Islamabad’s reservations in a clear indication just how the Gulf state with whom Pakistan had longstanding strategic ties now viewed India. Saudi Arabia’s relationship too has seen great transformation in recent years with India. In February 2019 when Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman visited Pakistan, he also travelled to India calling Modi his elder brother. The warmth in the Gulf countries’ ties with New Delhi stemmed from the economic interests, much to the annoyance of Pakistan. India also cleverly used its economic clout to make inroads both in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. But that bonhomie is now on the verge of collapse as outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic opened fault lines that may significantly change Indian ties with Gulf countries. The reason was a series of comments made by right-wing Hindu nationalists both working in the Gulf countries as well as back in India compelled UAE and Saudi figures to publicly condemn India’s anti-Muslim policies.  It all started in March when right-wing Hindu nationalists, including some ruling party politicians, accused Tableeghi Jamaat in India for being responsible for the spread of coronavirus. Muslim patients have been segregated from Hindus with growing incidents of violence against Muslims, accusing them of being the source of Covid-19. The Islamophobic comments were also made by certain Indian expatriates. That triggered a strong reaction from member of the UAE Royal family. Princess Hend Al Qassimi, called out a series of “Islamophobic posts” on Twitter last week by a user named Saurabh Upadhyay. The India national had put out several tweets targeting Muslims over the March congregation of Tableeghi Jamaat in New Delhi that led to a spike in the number of Covid-19 cases in India. A Twitter spat had soon ensued between Upadhyay and another user, during which the former allegedly used foul language. Claiming that the Tableeghis spat on people, Upadhyay asked, “What’s with peaceful people and spitting? New form of jihad custom made for 2020?”

20.            According to The Print, Upadhyay later went on to say how Hindus were being targeted in the Middle East and that the region is what it is today “because Indians have built cities like Dubai from scratch”. While Upadhyay seems to have deactivated or deleted his Twitter account, his controversial posts led to a sharp response by Princess Qassimi who shared screenshots of the tweets and said anyone “openly racist and discriminatory in the UAE will be fined and made to leave”. A Saudi scholar also condemned the Modi government’s fascist policies against Muslims, seeking expulsion of Indian nationals involved in hate speech from the Gulf region. Sheikh Abidi Zahrani urged governments in the Middle East, especially the Gulf, to clamp down on anyone showing sympathy with extremist Hindu ideology. Writing on his official twitter account, Zahrani shared the “Send_Hindutva_Back_home” hashtag. “I propose to all respected followers to list all militant Hindus who are working in the GCC and spreading hate against #Islam #Muslims or our beloved Prophet [Muhammad, peace be upon him] under this #hashtag #Send_Hindutva_Back_home.”  “Gulf states host millions of #Indians some of whom are infected #COVID__19 are treated free of charge regardless of their faith While #Hindutva #Terrorists gangs are committing crimes against #Muslims citizens,” he said in another tweet. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in an unusual statement strongly condemned the hate crimes against Muslims in India. The OIC on Sunday issued a statement, saying: “The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) expresses deep concern following recent media accounts of rising anti-Muslim sentiments and Islamophobia within political and media circles and on mainstream and social media platforms, where Indian Muslim minority is blamed for spreading the coronavirus in the country.” It added: “The OIC General Secretariat expresses its rejection of the targeting of Muslims anywhere, pointing out that the current Covid-19 world situation is such that it requires greater efforts, more active cooperation and solidarity mechanisms worldwide, and stronger mutual aid among all citizens of the same country.” The anger in Gulf countries prompted Modi to issue a statement distancing himself from the communal posts. The Indian Ambassador to UAE also tweeted reminding its countrymen against discriminatory behavior.   Although, there has been no official reaction from the UAE and Saudi Arabia over the controversy, observers believe the condemnation by a member of UAE royal family and a Saudi scholar was not possible without approval from their respective governments. Also the strong reaction from the OIC, which is controlled by Saudi Arabia, is a clear sign that all is not well as far as Indian relationship with Gulf countries are concerned. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2203830/1-indias-bonhomie-gulf-edge-amid-muslim-prejudice/

21.            Quarenteened Muslim dies: Apr., 25, 2020: A 60-year-old diabetic patient, named Mohammed Mustafa, who had participated in the Tablighi Jamaat at the Nizamuddin Markaz last month and was housed at a quarantine facility in northwest Delhi’s Sultanpuri, died on Wednesday morning  The people at the treatment centre told media that Mustafa lost his life due to negligence from authorities. “He did not receive medical attention and food on time despite several requests to the doctors and the staff,” a patient who is quarantined in the same facility says. “There were long gaps in the meals and even medicines are not available. The ambulance arrived late, even though I had been calling up the authorities for long,” Mustafa’s relative says. Several patients at the centre from South Indian states came out of their rooms to protest the death and uploaded videos on social media complaining about a lack of doctors and adequate treatment. “He did not get his diabetes medicine for 22 days.” Adnan, a diabetic patient who now stays in the same centre told Firstpost that he is very afraid since the death of Mustafa yesterday.“I myself don’t feel very well. How will a diabetic like me survive? We have to eat every two hours — that’s what the doctors have always told us. If we are not allowed to go out to even buy a packet of biscuits, the facility should provide it and take care of our medical needs. Negligence by the staff will only result in more casualties,” he said. “He died due to the non-availability of diabetic medicines for more than three weeks. We repeatedly demanded to government officials regarding this and unfortunately, there was no one to take action,” Fathima Muzaffer, member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board told Maktoob. “Many of them are not getting proper food and medicines on time at quarantine centers. It is unfortunate that in the time of a pandemic, some are busy with blaming the patients, not treating them,” Fathima who is also a leader of Indian Union Muslim League requested authorities to take immediate action. https://en.maktoobmedia.com/2020/04/24/quarantined-tablighi-member-dies-of-lack-of-food-medicine-in-delhi/?fbclid=IwAR3icaV7-Zc_1LWBIyH-7ckbrD0Oui0Y52Kwhg7ryzefyyawejT2zXU-NN8

22.            Zargar: Apr., 27, 2020: Safoora Zargar, a research scholar from Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) university, spent her first day of Ramadan in the high-security Tihar jail in the Indian capital, New Delhi. The 27-year old, in the second trimester of her first pregnancy, was arrested on April 10 and subsequently charged under the stringent anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2019 (UAPA), by the Delhi police. Zargar was associated with the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC), which organised weeks of peaceful protests in the capital against a citizenship law passed last December. .Police accuse Zargar of being a key "conspirator" in the February violence that erupted in northeast Delhi after supporters of the Hindu nationalist government attacked peaceful sit-ins. At least 53 people were killed, mostly Muslims, in the worst violence in the capital since the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. "She was the strongest women voice in the JCC but, she wasn't there to just be in the spotlight unlike some others", said Kausar Jan, an art student, who along with others had painted protest art on the walls of the university. Speaking to Al Jazeera, one of Zargar's teachers described her as "outspoken and hard working". "I really hope that the judiciary will consider her academic record and her medical condition and release her soon," she said, requesting to remain anonymous. A member of the JCC, who also wished to remain anonymous, said the arrests amid the coronavirus pandemic were to ensure that the anti-CAA movement died a slow death, even after the lockdown is lifted. On February 10, Zargar had fainted after being caught in a scuffle between the police and students, and had to be hospitalised briefly. "Since then, with her advancing pregnancy a concern, she had gradually restricted her physical movement. And after the outbreak of COVID-19 she had virtually stopped stepping out of the house except for essential work. She was mostly working from home," her husband, who requested his name not be used, told Al Jazeera. The Tihar prison complex in New Delhi is one of India's most overcrowded prisons with nearly double the number of inmates than it can accommodate. The COVID-19 outbreak has led to Indian courts ordering the release of those who have not been to trial but Zargar, charged with as many as 18 crimes including rioting, possession of arms, attempt to murder, incitement of violence, sedition, murder, and promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, is not eligible for an early release."In fact, we had secured bail in the Jaffrabad case where she had been accused of leading women and children to protest and disrupt traffic," her lawyer, who also withheld his name, said. But, before she could be released, police arrested her in another case. They refused to disclose what the exact charges were against her, or even the material which formed the basis for her arrest. It was after the court ordered that charges and material be disclosed that the police invoked UAPA against Zargar. "Incarcerating her despite her pregnancy on the basis of vague charges is a grave miscarriage of justice," her lawyer said. Concerns are being raised about limited access to justice during the coronavirus pandemic. Visits to prisons by lawyers and families have been banned. After several days, the court allowed Zargar's lawyer to speak to her over the phone. "I am aghast to learn that in the name of quarantine, Safoora [Zargar] is being kept in solitary confinement! Can you imagine the psychological toll this will take on her? She told me that she had made five applications to speak telephonically to her husband but was denied each time by citing COVID-19 protocols," the lawyer said. The lawyer is worried that Zargar is suffering from medical and dietary negligence. UAPA is often characterised by activists as 'the process which is the punishment'. It allows police up to six months to file charges against the accused - as against three months under regular criminal law. Using it against an ordinary student such as Zargar has raised serious concerns about the Delhi police's impartiality. "This case shows that diminished access to justice during the lockdown is being used to implicate and imprison student activists who led the peaceful anti-CAA protests," said Vrinda Grover, a Supreme Court advocate. Zargar's family marked the first day of Ramadan with sadness and anxiety."It would have been a very joyful occasion given that we are expecting our first child. All we did was pray for her safety and quick release. In her condition she needs care, not jail," her husband told Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/india-charged-anti-terror-law-pregnant-woman-jail-200426100956360.html

23.            Kuwait: Apr., 28, 2020: Kuwaiti Cabinet of Ministers on Sunday issued a press statement condemning attacks on Muslim minority in India. The letter from Kuwaiti Cabinet of Ministers has addressed Sheikh Nasser Al Mohammed Al Sabah, Foreign Minister, urging him to be informed of the recent spread of Islamophobia in the country and take subsequent measures to address the same. The statement from Kuwait’s Cabinet of Ministers has expressed its “grave concern over ethnic attacks against Muslims” in India.They further called on the world community to condemn such hate speech and communal attacks on the minorities in India including the Organization of Islamic Cooperation “to take the necessary and urgent measures to halt these attacks in a way preserving rights of Muslims there and stemming the shedding of their blood.” he rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric on Arab social media was originally triggered by a Dubai-based Indian, Saurabh Upadhyay, who had asked Muslims to stop finding ways to defend Tablighi Jamaat, compelling them to “accept that they were the source of the pandemic.” Some of these caught the attention of authorities of the Middle Eastern nations who have sacked Indian employees for their professed anti-sentiments against Muslims in very strong languages over social media. Now more and more Arab leaders are supporting this welcome response to combat hate speech online and offline. The Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) established by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has also called on the Indian government to take immediate steps “to stop the growing tide of Islamophobia in India and protect the rights of its persecuted Muslim minority as per its obligations under international human rights law.   http://twocircles.net/2020apr27/436272.html

24.            Religious freedom; Apr., 29, 2020: The US Commission on International Religious Freedom on Tuesday called for the State Department to add India to its list of countries with uniquely poor records on protecting freedom to worship in its annual report. The commission  empowered by an independent arbiter to look only at nations’ religious freedom records, apart from their relationship with the United States, vice chair Nadine Maenza said. Beyond the citizenship law, Maenza said in an interview, India has a broader “move toward clamping down on religious minorities that’s really troublesome.” “The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed in December of last year by the Parliament in majority-Hindu India, violates religious freedom especially for Muslims,” the report states.    violations of religious freedom.”The religious freedom watchdog says it is recommending for the first time since 2004 that India be given that designation. The 104-page report chronicled the progress and failures on religious freedom in 29 countries during 2019

  https://tribune.com.pk/story/2209210/3-religious-freedom-watchdog-wants-india-blacklist/

25.            Boycotting Muslims: Apr., 30, 2020: A lawmaker from India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Suresh Tiwari from Uttar Pradesh, has asked people of his constituency not to buy vegetables from Muslim vendors to protect themselves from the coronavirus, Indian media reported on Tuesday. In a widely circulated video on Indian social media, Tiwari can be seen telling people to "keep one thing in mind [...] do not buy vegetables from miyan (Muslims  Talking to Indian publication The Wire, Tiwari later confirmed he had made those remarks "around April 17-18", and defended his statement by saying he had heard reports from people in his constituency that Muslim vendors were "spitting on vegetables before selling them". He said he "advised the people to [not buy vegetables from them] so they could protect themselves from the coronavirus    . https://www.dawn.com/news/1553175/bjp-lawmaker-warns-against-buying-vegetables-from-muslim-vendors-to-keep-safe-from-virus

26.            Muslim vendor harassed: Apr., 30, 2020: Another BJP leader launched a communal attack on a Muslim vegetable vendor in Uttar Pradesh, during the COVID-19 lockdown in India. The MLA in question, Brij Bhushan Sharan, is seen harassing the vendor and a young boy outside his residence.The MLA, from Charkhari in UP’s Mahoba district, was seen coercing the vegetable seller and the young boy to reveal their religious identities, as per ANI. https://www.thequint.com/news/india/dont-be-seen-here-again-another-bjp-mla-harasses-muslim-vendor

27.            GCC reacts: May, 1, 2020: In the past couple of weeks, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Kuwait government, a royal princess of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as a number of Arab activists have called out Islamophobic hate speech by Indians seen to be accusing the country's Muslims of spreading the novel coronavirus. A barrage of tweets and statements from individuals and institutions in the Gulf expressing their outrage over the hateful social media posts forced the Indian government to respond, including a Twitter post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which he stressed that "COVID-19 does not see race [or] religion". It started with right-wing Hindus accusing Muslims of a "conspiracy" to spread the coronavirus after dozens of cases were linked to a congregation of Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary movement, at their headquarters in New Delhi in the middle of March  Following the Jamaat issue, a wave of Islamophobic posts was unleashed on social media by right-wing Hindus, some of them employed in Gulf countries.  An old tweet by Tejasvi Surya, a young member of parliament belonging to Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also resurfaced, provoking further outrage "The level of hubris of the Hindutva fascists shocked people throughout the world, changing previously held opinions," Dr Farhan Mujahid Chak, who teaches political science in the Gulf Studies programme at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera. Princess Hend al-Qassimi, a member of the UAE royal family, warned "openly racist and discriminatory" Indians in the Gulf that they "will be fined and made to leave" the country.In the past month, at least six Hindus working in the Gulf region have lost their jobs or have been charged for their social media posts. On Monday, in what was a clear sign of the issue escalating in the Arab world, Kuwait expressed its "deep concern" over the treatment of India's Muslims and asked the Organisation of International Cooperation (OIC) to intervene. Earlier, on April 18, the OIC had issued a statement, urging India to take urgent steps to "stop the growing tide of Islamophobia" in the country. Princess al-Qassimi, who has emerged as one of the most prolific Arab voices against Islamophobia in India, last week wrote a column for the Gulf News, in which she said: "The world doesn't need another Hitler, but it needs another hero like Martin Luther, Nelson Mandela, or Gandhi.""Killing your brethren doesn't make you a hero, it makes you a dictator and murderer. A snowballing movement has been started, which has reverberated across the Arab world," she wrote in her piece, titled I pray for an India without hate and Islamophobia. On Sunday, Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in an apparent reference to the Jamaat congregation in New Delhi, said in an online speech from the group's headquarters in Nagpur that it was "not right to blame the entire community for the mistakes of few individuals". The RSS is the ideological mentor of Modi's BJP. On Tuesday, in its worst rating since 2004, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom urged the State Department to designate India as a "country of particular concern" over "severe violations" of religious freedom. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/arabs-speaking-islamophobia-india-200423112102197.html

Monthly update  7:  March 2020 : Muslims in India

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1.     UNHRC: Mar., 3, 2020: The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has filed an intervention application in the Supreme Court raising concerns over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and also informed India's Permanent Mission in Geneva about the same. https://thelogicalindian.com/news/unhrc-anti-caa-play-19970

2.     British MPs: Nar., 4, 2020:  India came under fire in the House of Commons on Tuesday with Labour, SNP, Liberal Democrats and Conservative MPs, including Indian-origin MPs, queuing up to criticise the Indian government for the recent violence in Delhi and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and urging the UK government to take stronger action. At one point, when SNP’s David Linden said they had seen Modi and Trump embracing “in their scramble to get a trade deal” and asked for assurances that the UK would raise these cases “at the highest levels of government” and not ignore human rights when it came to trade deals, junior minister in the FCO Nigel Adams, standing in for foreign secretary Dominic Raab   who was in Turkey, said: “Whilst trade is absolutely vital for our economy and future prosperity, this in no way compromises the UK commitment to holding human rights at the core of our foreign policy, and I can guarantee we will not pursue trade to the exclusion of human rights.” Adams said the events in Delhi were “very concerning”, the UK was monitoring the violence and developments around CAA “closely” and the UK condemned targeting of people based on religion. "Any allegation of human rights abuses is deeply disturbing and we have made it clear these must be investigated thoroughly, promptly and transparently,” Adams said. Tory MP Richard Graham said videos showed “shocking orchestrated sectarian violence” and asked the minister to invite the UK Indian high commissioner to his office to share with him the “deep concerns” of so many constituents  When communal violence broke out in northeast Delhi last week, nameplates and hoardings that reveal the identity of the resident or a shop owner, were among the first things removed before the residents left their homes to safer places. The dark, narrow lanes deep inside Shiv Vihar, among the worst-hit areas, are empty. Economic activity has also been hit hard . Adams said he would ask Lord Ahmad to meet with the Indian high commissioner. Labour MP Stephen Timms said the CAA was “a decisive move away” from Ambedkar’s Constitution which was admired around the world for its commitment to equality. Labour MP and PIO Tan Dhesi said “incited mob violence in Delhi on the basis of someone’s faith” brought back painful memories of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots when he was studying in India. He said that the “persecution of Indian Muslims”, many of whom have been peacefully protesting against CAA, is “utterly intolerable” and the police cannot stand by “or worse still be complicit as is alleged by many victims and social activists”. He said the perpetrators must face the full force of law. Many of the MPs referred to a BBC broadcast on Monday night which said the police had been complicit in the violence against Muslims. Mirpur-born Labour MP Mohammad Yasin said: “As the BBC recently reported, there is evidence the police are complicit in the latest outbreak of violence in Delhi and encouraging violence against Muslims.” Tory MP Nusrat Ghani asked the minister to make sure the concerns of MPs are relayed to the Indian authorities, “including the brutality that seems to have (been) meted out by those who should be enforcing the law which was covered by the BBC on Monday night”. PoK-origin Labour MP Zarah Sultana   said the violence in Delhi had been “whipped up by BJP politicians” and was “the latest targeted assault on Muslims by the Modi government.” PIO Labour MP Nadia Whittome said it was time to reject the language of “clashes and communal violence ” when describing the riots as it was actually “a continuation of sustained and systemic Hindutva violence waged on Muslim and many minority ethnic communities in India that is sanctioned by Modi’s BJP government”. Liberal Democrats MP Alistair Carmichael  said the CAA and the violence it has precipitated was not an isolated act and came on the heels of the implantation of the NRC in Assam   “It begins to look like part of a course of conduct designed to marginalise Muslims in India. India is in the Commonwealth. What are we doing through the Commonwealth?” Carmichael asked    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-under-fire-in-uk/articleshow/74465081.cms

3.     Protesting women crudely harassed: Mar., 4, 2020: Two separate groups of women from the riot-hit areas of north-east Delhi, one of which was present at the Chand Bagh protest on Monday, and one which was present at the violence perpetrated at Shiv Vihar, have told The Wire that members of a right-wing mob pulled down their pants, exposed their genitals to them and said, “Yeh lo azaadi.” (‘Here, take freedom.’). Azaadi’ is part of the rallying cry that protesters across the city have been using to ask for freedom – from the Citizenship Amendment Act, from the National Register of Citizens, from the reign of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. The word has now been twisted by those perpetrating violence against them, as a vicious response to the freedom they sought – as if to say the only freedom they will get is the freedom of this violence.“I was standing at the Chand Bagh protest site when two members of our protest had been detained by the police. The women of the protest came out to confront the policemen and ask where they had been taken. A group of right-wingers came up to us, shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’, and four men there pulled their pants down and pointed their genitals at us, and shouted ‘Yeh lo azaadi’,” says Asifa*, who did not want her name to be published for fear that she would be arrested. “Our men came out and made a line in front of us, to protect us, and the mob started throwing stones at them. The police went behind the protest and started throwing tear gas shells into the protest site, so we could not respond because we were coughing and crying. There were women and children there. The police lathi charged us,” Asifa adds.She fell unconscious during the tear gassing. Others there – including elderly women and pregnant women – sustained injuries after being lathi charged by the police. This sequence of events was also narrated by an activist who was present at the site, saying the incident took place around noon at Chand Bagh on Monday, February 24.“We thought that if there was stone throwing happening, it would happen from both sides. But the protest site people were not throwing stones, because they were being tear gassed constantly.” “I heard them say, bring the women out onto the road. ‘Bahar lao unko, yahan pe ragdenge, ghasitenge’ (‘bring them out, we will assault them, drag them’).”She also says the police was throwing stones at the protesters. Rubina says, “When they were spreading terror there, out of fear we stayed in our homes. They threw stones at our doors, and broke them with lathis. They burnt gas cylinders at our mosques, and they beat our men. We left everything and we ran when we could for fear of our lives.” She tells us of her neighbour, who had taken her daughter and fled to the terrace in the hope that she would be safe there, and on seeing that they would not be, had jumped from the terrace, with the daughter’s legs breaking in the process. She speaks of another neighbour’s daughter who was ‘dishonoured’ and killed   “The mobs were from outside, but there were also locals there. The locals told them where we lived – this is a Hindu house, this is a Muslim house.” “They’ve looted everything. They’ve taken everything. We left with the clothes on our back. If we hadn’t run on Monday morning, they would have killed us, they would have killed our children.” “They opened their pants and showed us, and asked, do you want azaadi? They opened their pants… They beat us, they tore our clothes. We’ve been given clothes over here  .Another woman says that they put acid on the mosque’s imam and his daughter. The Wire has not been able to confirm this claim “They’ve looted the house, and the shop. When my husband went to see what was left, he searched for our Koran. The Koran had been destroyed. What had our Koran done, to be destroyed? They threw it, they burned it,” she says.Her voice breaking, she says through tears, “I don’t know why we survived, they’ve taken everything. Do I have the right to live here? I do not. And I do not want to live, better than this that they had killed me then. I wish I had burnt with my house, I wish my children burnt down. What do I do in that house now?”“They have made our home a graveyard,” says another woman.They say the children are so scared they can’t stand, trembling at the thought of going out.“My brother went to get a Koran. The police said stop, and out of fear he halted, trembling. He was holding his Koran in his hand. “They made him do sit-ups holding onto his Koran. How is this justice, how are we supposed to live here, how am I supposed to live, will anyone tell me what will become of me.”Minhaz*, and Mereen* who are schoolchildren in the 9th grade, say that they weren’t even able to give their exams.“We scrambled through someone else’s terrace…They were cutting people and throwing them in the drain. The police were not helping us, they were helping them. They were shooting people, I saw it with my own eyes, from the roof. Two men brought another man on a motorbike, and gave him to the police, and the police shot him. I can barely say this, every time I say it my heart beats fast.”  “We’re terrified here, and they’re going to Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Kolkata.“You’re doing rallies across the world, but can you see us? You’re releasing all these new schemes, but they will only be useful if people are still alive. When we are not alive, then what use are your schemes?“You’re releasing schemes in UP while people are dying of hunger in Delhi. If you can’t manage your government then istifa de doh, give us your resignation, say you can’t manage it.”  https://thewire.in/women/delhi-riots-women-sexual-harassment  

4.     Report: Mar., 5, 2020: Report says extensive damage to Muslim houses, shops and workshops everywhere, but at Yamuna Vihar shops and houses belonging to both communities were affected. The Delhi Minorities Commission in its assessment report of events which unfolded recently in northeast Delhi has concluded that the violence which erupted was “one-sided, well-planned” and involved support from locals with maximum damage being done to shops and houses belonging to the minority community. The Commission also said that compensation announced by the Delhi government was inadequate, considering the extent of damage caused due to the violence.“We found extensive damage to Muslim houses, shops and workshops everywhere we went. We found that people were visiting their damaged houses for the first time since they fled on February 24-25 but since the houses and shops were badly damaged and debris lying, there was no question that they will be able to start living there any time soon,” the panel said. https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/delhi-violence-one-sided-well-planned-says-minorities-panel/article30979785.ece

5.     Freedom of World: Mar., 5, 2020: In the latest edition of Freedom in the World, an annual report published by Washington-based pro-democracy nonprofit Freedom House, India has suffered the largest decline in its political rights and civil liberties score among the 25 most populous democracies because of the Narendra Modi government’s “alarming departures from democratic norms,” while Kashmir’s status has declined from “Partly Free” to “Not Free.” On Kashmir, the Report 2020 highlights the abrupt revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K) special status on 5 August, 2019, the massive deployment of troops, the arbitrary arrests of hundreds of Kashmiri leaders and activists, and shutdown of mobile and internet services. Kashmir, the report said, “experienced one of the largest single-year score declines of the past 10 years in Freedom in the World, and its freedom status dropped to Not Free. Interestingly, the Freedom House was founded in 1941 with the support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the rise of Nazism at the time. The 2020 gives a damning assessment of the Modi government’s pattern of Hindu nationalist policies, including the persecution of religious minorities, abruptly revoking Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, the adoption of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which it calls a discriminatory citizenship law and the aggressive suppression of the anti-CAA protests that followed. India, which is ranked ‘Free,’ dropped from 75/100 in 2019 to 71 in 2020.“Indian government has taken its Hindu nationalist agenda to a new level with a succession of policies that abrogate the rights of different segments of its Muslim population, threatening the democratic future of a country long seen as a potential bulwark of freedom in Asia and the world,” Sarah Repucci, Freedom House’s Senior Director of Research and Analysis, writes in the report. India because of its Hindu nationalist policies was highlighted as glaring example in the 2020 Freedom report, which is called A Leaderless Struggle For Democracy. The report said, “The BJP has distanced itself from the country’s founding commitment to pluralism and individual rights, without which democracy cannot long survive.”  https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/04/freedom-report-grills-india-for-anti-kashmir-anti-muslim-agenda/

6.     UK Parliament: Mar., 5, 2020: While raising concern over recent violence in Delhi that resulted in loss of over 45 lives, Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom have pressed the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to share the details of its engagement with the Indian government on this subject. Sikh MPs Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Preet Gill Kaur are the latest UK lawmakers to join the chorus of criticism against the Indian government’s handling of the Delhi carnage. While asking an urgent question of the representatives of the FCO in Parlia­ment, Labour MP for Slough Dhesi said the violence in Delhi in recent days “brings back painful memories”.“[I have witnessed it] as a religious minority during the 1984 genocide of the Sikhs, while I was studying in India. Mr Speaker, we must learn from history, not be fooled by those whose insidious aim is to divide society, [and who are] hell-bent on killing and destroying religious places, all in the name of religion. I ask the Minister, what message has he given to his Indian counterpart [regarding] that persecution of Indian Muslims?” Labour MP for Edgbaston, Birmingham, Preet Gill Kaur also asked: “Can the minister explain what steps he is taking to ensure all ethnic and religious minorities in India are able to feel safe and secure and free from persecution?” Violence in New Delhi erupted over India’s disputed new citizenship law that led to clashes in which hundreds were injured and houses, shops, mosques, schools and vehicles were set on fire. Tensions between Hindu hardliners and Muslims protesting the Hindu-first policies of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had been building for months when the violence exploded a week ago, on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s state visit to India.,Another Labour MP, Khalid Mahmood, also questioned what the UK government was doing in response to the riots in Delhi. MP Mahmood said the riots were “sickening” and warned that the Indian Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 would be followed by a National Register of Citizens that would lead Muslims being “held in concentration camps” before being deported. He said Modi’s actions were translating his ‘India for the Hindus’ slogan into a “hateful nationalist brutality”. He told the House that the Muslims were beaten and murdered in the streets while the police did nothing and “Modi cynically counts the benefits of electoral success”. In response to these questions, Minister of State at FCO Nigel Adams said: “The Hon Member speaks very powerfully from personal experience. It is absolutely essential that we speak up where we believe abuses have taken place and when protest crosses the line into illegalities. He added: “The British high commission in New Delhi and our extensive diplomatic network of deputy high commissions across India are monitoring closely the recent violence in India and developments around the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019”. “The events in Delhi last week were very concerning, and the situation is still tense. The death of one protester is one too many. We urge restraint from all parties and trust that the Indian government will address the concerns of people of all religions in India”. Labour MPs are not alone in calling out the violence in Delhi and urging the British government to do more. Paul Bristow, Conservative MP for Peterborough and Tommy Sheppard, the Scottish National Party MP for Edinburgh East, both have asked the FCO to share details on its position on Delhi riots and the CAA. On Twitter, Conservative MP for Wycombe Steve Baker urged the UK Foreign Office and Dominic Raab to make Kashmir a top priority for the UK and the world. Baker has been vocal about his engagement with Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK Nafees Zakariya and has said that British Kashmiri’s are entitled to “robust representation” on the issues of violence as a result of shelling in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. See video : https://www.facebook.com/FinalWarAgainstCorruption/videos/2899218853474123/UzpfSTEyMzYxNjc1MjA6Vks6MjY5MjA0MDIyNzU4ODExNQ/ ; read full coverage at:

https://www.dawn.com/news/1538516/uk-mps-press-for-answers-on-delhi-violence

7.     Iran: Mar., 6, 2020: Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged India on Thursday to “confront extremist Hindus” and “stop the massacre of Muslims”, adding to the international fallout over deadly anti-Muslim violence in New Delhi. “The hearts of Muslims all over the world are grieving over the massacre of Muslims in India,” Khamenei said in a tweet in English, just days after New Delhi rebuked Iran’s foreign minister for commenting on the same issue.“Iran condemns the wave of organised violence against Indian Muslims,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Monday, in response to which New Delhi summoned the Iran’s ambassador and lodged a protest. Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani also expressed concern about the plight of Muslims in the South Asian nation, and urged the Indian government to prevent sectarian violence in the country. Larijani said that the new law was a contravention of Muslim rights.  . https://tribune.com.pk/story/2170154/3-iran-asks-india-stop-attacks-muslims-deadly-riots/

8.     Muslim killer: Mar., 6, 2020:  Nishant Kumar, 29, who had an unsettling smile on his face as he spoke about murdering Muslim men on the haunting night of February 29, claimed to have witnessed a “Mohammadan” mob burn down vehicles in the Yamuna Vihar – one of the affected areas of Delhi.“What we did was an act of retaliation,” he insisted. According to the published article, on the morning of February 25, Kumar said he stepped out around 8am. He was armed with an iron rod. He tied a kitchen knife to one end of the rod to make up for the absence of a gun. “Bandook nikaalke pakde jaana hai kya?” “I did not want to get caught with a gun,” he exclaimed. At around 10am, Kumar said he got his first hit. “The Mohammadan was running,” he recalled. “The Hindu public was chasing him. I was leading the pack.” “I was the first to catch up with him, and hit him with my rod on his head,” he continued, his voice turning shriller and his hands mimicking the strike. “Then he fell down, and the public pounced on him after that…de dhana dhan dhan.” Kumar said he killed two more people in a similar fashion – striking Muslim men running away from Hindu mobs in the back with his improvised weapon. “I had to kill three. I did that.” While inquiring about the role of policemen around when he was chasing down Muslim men and hacking them, Kumar said there were none. “There was no one,” he said. “No one came even after we killed them and threw their bodies.”  .As cited by the article, the most chilling account came from a 32-year-old cab driver, who works for a taxi app service.“Tum Hindu ho isiliye bol raha hoon, varna yeh sab bolne ki cheez nahi hai,” he said. (You are a Hindu, that is why I am telling you. Otherwise, these are not things you talk about. The driver claimed he was armed with a gun and a sword. “The gun in my left hand and the sword in the right one,” he said. “My aunt said she was reminded of my father. He would step out just like that during the 1984 riots.” While a few Hindu men went on a killing spree, others stood admitting the first thing they did was cut off the electricity, the driver claimed. “We knew, of course, which houses belonged to Muslims,” one of them said. As a parting shot, one of the rioters said: “Bahut dabaa ke kaata saalon ko” (we really slayed them [Muslims]). Why else do you think they are going around begging for peace?” he added. The article published on Scroll.in https://tribune.com.pk/story/2170108/9-meet-delhi-rioters-claim-killed-muslims/

9.     Minorities in India: Mar., 6, 2020: The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is sounding the alarm about violence against religious minorities in Delhi, India. Mobs are terrorizing the streets, targeting mostly Muslims. Christians are also being targeted for evangelizing. Last week more than 40 people were killed, hundreds more were injured in brutal attacks.  "We're seeing the worst communal violence in decades," Anurima Bhargava, a USCIRF commissioner tells CBN News  the citizenship laws and this effort to try and have people document whether or not they are part of communities that they have been part of for so long is something that's giving license to people to feel like they can target or direct violence to these communities," she explains.  https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2020/march/the-worst-communal-violence-in-decades-religious-freedom-advocates-sound-the-alarm-in-india

10.                        Jakarta protest: Mar., 7, 2020:   Indonesian Muslims conducted a rally in front of the Indian Embassy here, Friday, as a mark of their solidarity for Indian Muslims and demanded that the Indian government end violence against Muslims in South Asia. The demonstration was initiated by the Front Pembela Islam (FPI-Islam Defenders' Front), GNPF Ulama, and the 212 Alumni Brotherhood (PA 212). The protesters strongly condemned the recent violence against Muslims in India that resulted in the deaths of 42 people and caused injuries to some 350 others. The communal mob by Indian Hindus against Muslims was triggered by the passage of the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act in December 2019 by the Modi administration.

 The Indonesian protesters brandished posters that read "Stop Genocide of Muslims in India", "Save Muslims in India", "Modi is Terrorist", and "The Government, don't remain silent. Cut relations with India", among other things. On March 2, members of Muslim organizations in Medan, North Sumatra Province, had held a rally in front of the Indian Consulate General to echo their solidarity towards Indian Muslims and condemn the bloody violence.  “We demand that the Indonesian government adopt a stern stance over the conflict in India since our brothers and sisters of the same faith are being murdered,” Razali Taat, the rally’s coordinator, stated. In addition, the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) was unequivocal in denouncing the violence on Muslims in India. "We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the barbaric act of violence that reflects real extremism and gross violation of human rights," the council noted in a press statement signed by its chairman, Prof. Dr Din Syamsudin, on March 2. The council urged the Indian government to take stern measures against those involved in the attack and protect Indian Muslims from cruelty in any form.It also called upon the Indian government and parliament to cancel the law that discriminates against Muslims in India. https://en.antaranews.com/news/143018/jakarta-rally-expresses-solidarity-for-indian-muslims

11.                        US Commission on International Freedom: Mar., 7, 2020: Experts warned a US government panel on Wednesday that India’s Muslims face risks of expulsion or other persecution under a citizenship law that has triggered major protests.The hearing held inside Congress was called by the US Commission on International Freedom, which has been denounced by the Indian government as biased. Ashutosh Varshney, a prominent scholar of sectarian violence in India, told the panel that the law championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalists amounted to a move to narrow the democracy’s historically inclusive and secular definition of citizenship. “The threat is serious, and the implications quite horrendous,” said Varshney, a professor at Brown University.“Something deeply injurious to the Muslim minority can happen once their citizenship rights are taken away,” he said. Varshney warned that the law could ultimately lead to expulsion or detention — but, even if not, contributes to marginalization. “It creates an enabling atmosphere for violence once you say that a particular community is not fully Indian or its Indianness in grave doubt,” he said.  Fears are particularly acute in the northeastern state of Assam, where a citizens’ register finalized last year left 1.9 million people, many of them Muslims, facing possible statelessness. Aman Wadud, a human rights lawyer from Assam who traveled to Washington for the hearing, said that many Indians lacked birth certificates or other documentation to prove citizenship and were only seeking “a dignified life.”  https://tribune.com.pk/story/2170059/3-us-panel-hears-risks-indian-muslims/

12.                        Afghan Protest: Mar., 7, 2020:  The people in Afghanistan have also resorted to protest against India’s anti-Muslim acts, burnt its flag and demanded the Kabul regime to terminate its ties with New Delhi. Thousands of people staged a protest rally in Afghanistan’s western Herat City on Friday against Muslims’ massacre in Delhi and the Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IOJ&J) by Hindu extremists under the aegis of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Indian government. The infuriated protesters also burnt the Indian flag and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s poster, and demanded his execution for carrying out atrocities against Muslims in India and Occupied Kashmir.    https://dnd.com.pk/afghanistan-rocked-by-anti-india-protest-over-muslims-massacre-indian-flag-burnt-in-herat/183498

13.                        Manmohan Singh : Mar., 8, 2020: Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh said India's situation is "very grim and morose", warning that "wilfully stoked communal tensions, gross economic mismanagement and an external health shock are threatening to derail India’s progress and standing". Singh maintained that currently India was facing threats from "the trinity of social disharmony, economic slowdown and a global health epidemic".Commenting on the deadly communal violence that swept through the Indian capital recently, the former prime minister said: "With no checks, the fire of social tensions is rapidly spreading across the nation and threatens to char the soul of our nation. It can only be extinguished by the same people that lit it."  "Every act of sectarian violence is a blemish on Mahatma Gandhi’s India,"  "The India that we know and cherish is slipping away fast. It is time to confront the harsh reality of the grave risks we face as a nation and address them squarely and sufficiently," he wrote. https://www.dawn.com/news/1539119/india-situation-grim-and-morose-ex-pm-manmohan-singh

14.                        Muslim arrested: Mar., 8, 2020: The Delhi Police has arrested a 27-year-old tobacco seller in  Shiv Vihar, Mohd Shehnawaz, on Saturday for allegedly killing Dilbur Singh Negi (20) during the Delhi riots on February 24. The police said that multiple witnesses identified Shehnawaz as having allegedly pelted stones, ransacked and torched several shops in Shiv Vihar. He was not missing or absconding, and was picked from the area by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Crime Branch probing the matter under the leadership of DCP Rajesh Deo. https://thewire.in/communalism/delhi-riots-tobacco-seller-from-shiv-vihar-arrested

15.                        Shahindokht Molaverdi : Mar., 10,2020: Iranian president’s Special Assistant for Citizenship Rights Shahindokht Molaverdi says Tehran should adopt a clearly effective and preventive stance toward the massacre of Muslims in India. “As a Muslim country, we have a bigger responsibility [than others] toward the ongoing disaster in India, and we should prioritize the humane and religious observations over other matters in this regard,” Molaverdi said in an interview with Mehr News Agency. Referring to the Iranian foreign minister’s comments over the “organized violence” against the Indian Muslims, Molaverdi said, “This shows that the issue [of killing Muslims] is now high on the agenda of our foreign diplomacy.”However, she stressed, “Our actions must be conducted in a way that is effective and deterrent so as to prevent the repetition of such crimes, and we need to set a clear policy over the issue on the regional and international level.” She said that the ongoing disaster is of much importance that it is “imperative to both address this issue in the meetings of the member of the Organization of the Islamic Countries (OIC).” “We should also, in some way, use other existing international mechanisms to tackle it," she added.  as soon as possible.  Earlier last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned the “the wave of the organized violence against Indian Muslims” and urged the Indian authorities to ensure the wellbeing of all Indians and not let “the senseless thuggery prevail.” https://en.mehrnews.com/news/156510/Iran-should-adopt-effective-deterrent-stance-against-killing

16.                        MAPIM: Mar., 10, 2020: Kuala Lumpur based non-governmental organization, Malaysian Consultative Council for Islamic Organization (MAPIM) has expressed deep anguish and concerns over the prevailing bloodbath targeting Muslims in India and inhuman lockdown in occupied Kashmir. The MAPIM headed by Mohammad Azmi Abdul Hamid in a statement issued in Kuala Lumpur demanded the Indian government to immediately take action against Hindus extremist elements who targeted and killed the innocent Muslims in Delhi and destroyed their properties and masjids. The organization also condemned the role of the Indian media and police in being biased against the Muslims and being complicit with the government to promote their hateful agenda of division and oppression. “The unjust policies, laws and actions by the government have intentionally target a religious creed and this will render India unmanageable politically, socially and economically,” the statement added. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/10/mapim-denounces-massacre-of-indian-muslims-lockdown-in-iok/

17.                        Iran Protests: Mar., 11, 2020: Iran’s Assembly of Experts issued a statement on Tuesday calling on the Indian government to stop the violence against Muslims and prevent the fire of division in the South Asian country.“The unfortunate news and heartbreaking images from the bloody conditions of the oppressed Muslims of India, which are released at a minimal level, make the heart of every noble-minded human very sad,” read the Assembly of Experts’ statement, signed by its chairman Ayatolah Ahmad Jannai. The assembly decries the killings of the people and the destruction of mosques and religious places of the Indian Muslims, it added. The high-ranking body further called on the Indian government to take swift measures to end the violence against Muslims. . https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2020/03/10/2220758/iran-s-assembly-of-experts-urges-india-to-prevent-anti-muslim-violence

18.                        Grenade attack: Mar., 11, 2020: In occupied Kashmir, an Indian paramilitary soldier was injured in a grenade attack in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district, today. A police official said that unidentified persons lobbed a grenade on police station Kakpora in the district. In the blast one soldier of 41 battalion of Central Reserve Police Force, Sonu Kumar, sustained injuries https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/10/one-indian-soldier-injured-in-pulwama-grenade-attack/

19.                        Muslim Body; Mar., 13, 2020: In the statement, the international body World Assembly of Islamic Awakening, recognized the anti-Muslim incidents in India against UN resolutions and as a violation of the rights of the 200 million Muslims in the country. The body also recognized the US and the Zionist regime as the main financial supporters of the violence against Muslims, referring to the recent visit of President Trump to India.The Assembly called for the Indian government, as well as all international human rights organizations and Muslim leaders, to condemn the anti-Muslim measures in India and deplore them before a massacre takes place In a letter to the Indian ambassador to Tehran, representatives of Iranian civil societies launched a campaign under the title of "I am Indian", on Wednesday.In the letter to Gaddam Dharmendra, the social activists lamented the extremist approaches and called on the Indian government to fight extremism if it really seeks to fight terrorism, since extremist attitudes against followers of any specific religion will lead to the formation of terrorist groups such as the ISIL. In a tweet released on March 2, FM Zarif wrote, “Iran condemns the wave of organized violence against Indian Muslims. For centuries, Iran has been a friend of India. We urge Indian authorities to ensure the wellbeing of ALL Indians & not let senseless thuggery prevail. Path forward lies in peaceful dialogue and rule of law.”  https://en.mehrnews.com/news/156648/World-Assembly-of-Islamic-Awakening-slams-violence-against-Muslims

20.                        Muslim -businesses destroyed: Mar., 15, 2020:  Minutes later, I am in Younus’s devastated workshop. The tin roof has caved in. Gaunt metal frames and piles of burnt goods, being meticulously sorted by type, tell the story of a successful business doused in petrol and set aflame. There was no riot in Old Garhi Mendu – because it takes two sides to make one. After Hindu-Muslim violence spread in north-east Delhi on February 24, a group of young men from this village launched an unprovoked attack of a kind not witnessed here in living memory. Benaqab, or without masks – in more ways than one – they entered the modest Mubarak Masjid just as the evening prayer was to start and beat up the elderly muezzin, Mehboob Hasan, and others with wooden sticks and rods. After calling the police to no avail, the village’s vastly outnumbered Muslims had no choice but to scoop up their families and flee, leaving their homes and businesses unprotected. The few who stayed on the next day had to make an even more terrified exit, with gangs of youth banging on their doors and threatening them. More than two weeks later, most of these people, included the muezzin who is recovering from a head injury, do not spend the night in the village. Forty-year-old Younus, who has no surname, was at his fabrication unit, which makes stalls for exhibitions, on the evening of February 24. It was abuzz with activity because a fleet of trucks was shortly to leave with stalls for a medical fair in Mumbai. But when he heard the mosque had been attacked, the father of three, who lives in the properly urban Vijay Park, locked up and left. He did not want to risk his own life or those of his workers. The next night, his unit was set on fire. The flames burnt so intensely that an adjoining Hindu owned unit seems to have been singed by them. On February 29, when it became safer to return, it was all over. As we walk, he itemises: 600 8×4 boards, 300 partitions, 1,000 concealed lights…an estimated Rs 30-32 lakh of stock and investment reduced to cinders.“Hamein sadak par khara kar diya hai (They have left us on the road),” says the Class 12-educated man who apprenticed at Rs 10,000 a month to learn his skills and managed, over 15 years, to build a business with a Rs 2-crore turnover. Tragically, he did not get around to insuring it. Everywhere you turn in this village, among the lanes where Muslims live or work, there is a gutted or looted enterprise. A painting and denting business had its clients’ cars burnt; a maker of computer tables who sells on Amazon and Flipkart was so efficiently looted that he cannot produce a single table. A young man who makes protective boxes for sound and other equipment that is also picked from this muddy place by online firms, had his stock stolen and his little workshop gutted. The three-storey home-cum-workshop of a mattress maker was set on fire, after he estimates, machines, other goods and about a hundred completed mattresses, were lifted. With police absent, the marauders clearly had all the time they needed. Behind many of these enterprises is a backstory of a family – complete with “tiger mothers” organising apprenticeships for school dropout sons – that is moving up a difficult ladder. To crystallise what the economist Abusaleh Shariff told me in a conversation, many Muslims seek to rise through small businesses for a combination of reasons: their artisanal bent, their comparatively poor education levels, rising at a lower rate than those of non-Muslims,  and skewed government policies that keep them out of organised employment, where they are now, he estimates, just 2-4% of the workforce. A range of businesses, from tyre and auto parts shops to hairdressing saloons, from little units printing wedding cards to teashops, were cut down in the north-east Delhi violence. As social activist Maimoona Mollah put it, “People who were standing on their own feet had their backs broken.” It is harder to blame the violence on mysterious “outsiders” in this slightly isolated and self-contained village, though that doesn’t stop Gujjar “elders” from giving the media this spin. It was an inside job, a police officer conversant with the case told me in an off-the-record conversation. “Gaon ke log the.” When asked why, after two weeks, only two youths had been arrested, he claimed Muslims were too scared to name names. They want this village matter (gaon ki baat) to remain within the village, he claimed. However, young Muslims especially say the police do have the names, including those of children of the village elite. They also report that when they return to the village, Gujjars walk up to them and ask questions like, “So, you’re back?” and “Is it true you have named me?” Violence and impunity apart, Old Garhi Mendu is also a microcosm of the trauma being suffered by those re-entering violated homes and destroyed workplaces, and trying to get their lives and livelihoods going again. . Sleeping on a mattress far inferior to the ones he makes, Mohammad Javeduddin, the mattress maker, says he will have to rent rooms for his family if the Samoday Bhawan (community centre) where most of the families that fled are holed up, shuts shop. His three-storey house, which is both his home – “full furnish kiya tha” – and his production centre, is a charred mess. “The building will have to be demolished and rebuilt, the plinth has collapsed,” said the engineer from Bihar who took to making foam mattresses when he couldn’t get a job in Delhi. The family’s egg business has been derailed, with trays full of rotting eggs in their front room. We almost fail to notice, until soft-spoken Rizwana points it out, the charred yellow Mahindra Bolero maxi-truck that grew their business. Hasan drove it to Punjab to bring back large stocks of eggs and to transport them for sale in Delhi. The couple, who had recently paid off a loan on the truck, installed CCTV cameras to protect it at night. Efficient mobs destroyed the cameras when they attacked. In the back room of the two-storey house they built as their business grew, an empty blue jewellery case flung on a chair is the most visible sign of their personal effects being ransacked. But for Hasan and Rizwana, as for Younus and Javeduddin, the most important thing is getting the business going again. They have been forced to hire transport to deliver eggs. They tell me, despairingly, that ten days after Hasan alerted the insurer, Liberty General Insurance, and even had the sub-divisional magistrate speak to them, it is still lying outside his door with no one having come to visit. Discrimination or just inertia? It’s hard to tell.You can hear birdsong and smell fresh dung as Hasan and his sons accompany us to the mosque where it all began. Clearly subject to more than one attack, and burnt, it looks derelict and abandoned. Hasan identifies a mangled mess of metal as the metal stretcher that was used to take the dead for burial. In a ghastly twist to our little expedition, the children, trying to be helpful, rummage among the cinders and fish out charred remains of the Quran and the books that were used to teach Urdu. While the Delhi government is handing over Rs 25,000 as instant relief to those whose homes were set on fire, this is not the case for those who only suffered looting. So, 27-year-old Salim Saifi spends his days crisscrossing north-east Delhi, between his home in Shri Ram Colony, the sub-divisional magistrate’s office in Seelampur and his rented unit in Old Garhi Mendu where he was, until February 25, rapidly turning around computer tables. I keep running into this motor-mouth, immaculately dressed in a striped shirt and pants, and bearing the expression of a man going a little crazy for lack of work. “You have to keep your visibility going to sell online, if you lose it you’re finished,” explains the Class 12 pass son of a carpenter.  He races me through an account of how, on the back of “ratings and visibility” he went from a handful of orders to around 150 tables a month, and paid off of Rs 40,000 of a Rs 1.5 lakh loan from a friend. No bank loan? “It’s hard with an “M profile” and all the KYC requirements,” he says. That echoes what the Sachar committee observed all those years ago, about the “redlining” of Muslim areas by banks and financial institutions, effectively denying the community credit and other financial services. However, Saifi seems too irrepressible to be deterred by redlines. He says that after having earned himself a better profile by filing his second income tax return in June, his “next step” was to try again for a bank loan, and his “next step” after that was to buy a new labour-saving machine – and scale up. https://thewire.in/communalism/delhi-muslims-violence-businesses

21.                        Iran: Mar., 16, 2020: A member of Iran’s Guardian Council penned a letter to the Supreme Court of India, calling on the country’s highest judicial body to use its Constitutional powers and repeal a controversial citizenship law against Muslims that was ratified in December 2019. Dr. Hadi Tahan Nazif wrote in the letter on Saturday. “…To reconsider a controversial citizenship law that was ratified by the Parliament of India in December 2019", …https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2020/03/15/2223554/iran-s-guardian-council-urges-india-to-repeal-discriminatory-law-against-muslims

22.                        Modi tactics: Mar., 16, 2020: The anti-Muslim pogrom in Delhi last week only killed 43 people, and a few of them weren’t even Muslims. But then on Kristallnacht (‘The Night of Broken Glass’) in Germany in 1938, only 91 Jews were killed. It was still a Nazi declaration of war on the Jews, and a forewarning of the 6 million Jewish deaths to come. Is this India’s Kristallnacht? History does not repeat, but it does have patterns.  Only one in a hundred Germans was Jewish in 1933, when Hitler came to power. One-seventh of India’s population – two hundred million people – are Muslims. A Nazi-style ‘Final Solution’, or even the expulsion of the entire Muslim population (like the Nazis’ early fantasies about shipping Europe’s Jews to Madagascar) is just not practical in India. Narendra Modi is a realist, and his project is not genocide. It is the re-definition of Hindus as the only ‘real’ Indians, and the demotion of Indian Muslims to second-class citizenship. But it will still take a lot of violence to cow Muslims into accepting their new lower status, and that is what we were seeing in Delhi last week.  Getting Indian citizenship will be easy if they are Hindu (or Sikh, or Christian, or Buddhist), but almost impossible in practice if they are Muslim.The huge non-stop protests since December show that many Indians, including many Hindus, are appalled by Modi’s frontal assault on the principle of a secular Indian state whose citizens are equal before the law. But most Hindus seem to approve, and Hindus are 80% of the population. Modi hasn’t won yet. The protesters have not given up, the courts are not completely subjugated by the ruling party, and the BJP actually lost the election for the Delhi state assembly last month. But it won the ‘riots’ that followed. The Delhi violence was not just neighbour turning on neighbour in a spontaneous outburst of hatred. It was started by young Hindu thugs armed with iron bars, sticks and machetes, trucked in from nearby rural parts of Uttar Pradesh state to attack Muslims and get the violence going. Similar events are occurring all over India, and almost always the police stand by or actually join in the anti-Muslim attacks. There are stories of Hindus protecting their Muslim neighbours, as you would expect – there are good people everywhere – but the future doesn’t look promising. The protests may go on for another month, or another six months, but Modi has four more years to work with before he faces another election. By then India may be an unrecognisable place: a ‘soft’ fascist state achieved more or less by democratic means. https://www.therockymountaingoat.com/2020/03/indias-kristallnacht/

23.                        CJI : Mar., 17, 2020: Former CJI Ranjan Gogoi has been nominated to Rajya Sabha, a government notification said on Monday, 16 March. Gogoi served as the 46th Chief Justice of India from 3 October 2018 to 17 November 2019. He headed a five-judge bench that gave the verdict on the sensitive Ayodhya land dispute on 9 November last year. https://www.thequint.com/news/politics/former-cji-ranjan-gogoi-nominated-to-rajya-sabha

24.                        Iranian Lawyers’ Mar., 18, 2020: A group of Iranian lawyers has denounced violence against Muslims in India, urging the country’s Bar Council to uphold Muslims’ rights. The group, known as Lawyers Without Borders, wrote a letter to Chairman of the Bar Council of India Manan Kumar Mishra expressing concern over the significant and unjustified violence by extremist Hindu groups against Muslims protesters.According to the group, the Muslim protesters were peacefully objecting to the newly-passed controversial “Citizenship Act”.  “Apparently the security forces have not been able to control the violence, and some of the extremists have been backed up so that security in some areas in New Delhi has been endangered,” the letter read, Press TV reported. They warned about the grave consequences of such policies, emphasizing that the “discriminatory” law has raised international concern. “Some Hindu extremist groups have taken advantage of this situation and resorted to violent and inhuman treatment of Muslims whether they had objected to the law or not, and thus have turned such a peaceful protest into a conflict between Muslims and Hindus,” it stated. The Lawyers Without Borders reminded the chairman of India’s Bar Council that the current violence and discrimination against Muslims is “clearly in contradiction with the UN Charter and the fundamental human rights instruments”. The letter finally asked the Indian officials to take the necessary steps to end the serious concerns of the international community about the situation of Indian Muslims. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/446250/Iranian-lawyers-urge-Indian-Bar-Council-to-uphold-Muslims-rights

25.                        Report: Mar., 20, 2020: Report: An Inquiry in to the Anti-Muslim Violence in Northeast Delhi by a Team of Doctors that Visited the Affected Area. https://www.facebook.com/notes/javed-rashid/an-inquiry-in-to-the-anti-muslim-violence-in-northeast-delhi-by-a-team-of-doctor/10159811090497501/, horrific photographs have not been added to the report as these are extremely disturbing

26.                        Inquiry Report: Mar., 20, 2020: “An Inquiry in to the Anti-Muslim Violence in Northeast Delhi by aTeam of Doctors that Visited the Affected Area”.   https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_VvnTi9Z-XgnzV00zJr_qGk9vqgtLbwK  The documents includes- horrific photographs of the massacre, do not watch if you have a weak stomach. The ferocity and barbarity of this demands that International bodies take IMMEDIATE ACTION and NOTICE (although I see a slim chance of that happening) the savagery of this massacre should   prompt Indians to take action, if they don’t they will rue this fact. The ferocity of this massacre resembles the Pol Pot actions and need to be investigated and people punished. Perhaps Government of Pakistan should take this to UNHRC, even a citizen, say an Indian Muslim   could also report this to UNHRC ( IF ANY ONE WISHES TO DO THAT I WILL ASSIST AND PROVIDE FORMATS   AND PROCEDURES)

27.                        Indian Muslims: Mar., 21, 2020: Ask an Indian Muslim what is it in India’s public life that’s/he dreads most, wants to get rid of this socio-political plague as quickly as possible and wants to elect to power only such a party, or group of parties, that does not make anti-Muslim mass violence a vote-catching strategy. You will be amazed to find that (barring a few men like Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, MJ Akbar and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi) nearly 100 out of 100 Muslims will tell you that it is anti-Muslim violence. It finds a reflection in the classic Sachar Committee Report (in the “Perceptions” section). Why in the “Perception” section? Because, over the last 73 years of our independent existence, every influential politician has tried to deny this truth, because truth does not suit them. So, Gujarat 2002 does not matter because Delhi 1984 did not matter. Because they did not matter, regular lynchings of Muslim since 2014 did not matter, and the well-planned massacre of Muzaffarnagar 2013 did not matter, also because it was a curtain raiser for BJP victory and rule from 2014. In BJP rule nobody should expect anything good for Muslims. That was the message.Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has observed in an article published in The Indian Express of March 20: “the attacks on poor, working people, mainly Muslims, in Delhi cannot be separated from the attempts by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to redefine Indian citizenship and who is eligible for it, via the recent CAA, and the proposed NPR-NRC. This would appear in compatible with Article 14 of India’s Constitution, which clearly states that all citizens are equal before law. Together, these developments pose searching questions about India’s democratic future and its place in the global family of nations.” The government decided to humiliate Muslims on Babri Masjid, triple talaq and, finally an attempt to either disenfranchise them, banish them, put them in Nazi-like camps, torture or kill them under the garb of new citizenship laws. Muslims all over India took it as an existential threat and decided to oppose the combined web of CAA, NPR and NRC in legally and constitutionally-approved ways: sit-ins and demonstrations countrywide. 

28.                        Despite its unquestionable legality and constitutional sanction the Centre tried to quell it with indiscriminate lathi-charge and firing, including in the library and hostels of Jamia Millia, causing serious injury to students, reminiscent of a goonda mob attack on students and teachers of JNU on police watch earlier. Later, in its FIR the police named the victims of the attack as perpetrators at JNU. It said there were two attackers from the RSS-affiliated students union, ABVP, but did not name them. It was clearly a police-sponsored violence against students and teachers with leftist leanings. The same continued at Jamia and Shaheenbagh, the administration’s favourite goondas firing at protestors as police blatantly protected them. The Jamia shooter was described by police as a “juvenile” within a couple of minutes of his shooting a student through his forearm. He was described as a juvenile to protect him from harsh punishment. Soon he was found out to be over 20 as his father had died 20 years ago. This man had also voted in the last election. Such was the partiality of the state. BJP-run UP killed about two dozen demonstrators, heavily fined others and put a Rs one crore fine on an Urdu poet, Imran, for reciting an Urdu poem in public. Such ludicrousness with such brutality was seen in the handling of the protests in all BJP states as other states showed restraint. Amid all this chaos, injustice and state involvement in demolishing public faith in a just order promising Sab ka saath, Sab ka vikas, Sab ka vishwas the economic slowdown is deepening. The Delhi episode of mass violence has clearly been declared a pogrom by Atlantic journal as well as academics specialising in riots, pogroms and genocides, including Prof. Ashutosh Varshney. It means mass violence with police participation, which indicates a compromised state. As the corona virus strikes with full force in coming weeks the entire chain of production, distribution and consumption will break down. Schools, factories, offices and other work places will shut down, bringing the economy tumbling down and many lives destroyed or badly displaced and impoverished Now is the time to close our ranks. The government also must remove laws targeted at Muslims (as Amit Shah has repeatedly reassured people that no Hindu will be touched). Such things are in bad taste, bringing ignominy to all of us, as reflected in world media.https://www.siasat.com/we-people-india-hammered-three-sides-1861891/

29.                        Saheen Bagh Protest: Mar., 27, 2020: Police in India’s capital broke up the longest-running protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s citizenship law on Tuesday, citing a ban on public gatherings because of the coronavirus outbreak. Dozens of people, many of them women, have been staging a sit-in protest since early December on a street in the Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood, which has become a focal point for opposition to the law seen as discriminating against Muslims.  Some demonstrators resisted the police and at least nine people had been detained, six of them women, Srivastava said, adding there was no violence.   . https://www.dawn.com/news/1543374/indian-police-clear-out-anti-government-protest-citing-coronavirus

30.                        Modi and COV19: Mar., 27, 2020: This raises question over government's intent. It is using the coronavirus crisis to serve its own purpose, the prime among which is to wind up the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register protests being carried out throughout the country especially by Muslim women. When Lucknow police issued a notice to women at Ghanta Ghar site to wind up the protest, the women advised them to worry about themselves as the women were already wearing veils which protected them. On 19 March, 2020 a heavy posse of police personnel tried to get the site vacated. They outnumbered the women present at that point and it fails to register how large numbers of police personnel gathering will keep them safe from coronavirus. After a scuffle, the police realized that women were not going to move and withdrew, leaving some of the women injured. Uttar Pradesh health minister, without applying his mind, has suggested that people who'll not cooperate with government efforts to control the outbreak of coronavirus will be sent to jail, which will result in overcrowding of already crowded jails posing increased risk to inmates. The central government is also guilty of allowing communal violence to go on in national capital for over three days in the last week of February, in which over 50 precious lives were lost, again with the intention of winding up the anti-CAA-NRC-NPR protests. In Delhi the government has been successful in reducing the number of protests to half. But it clearly shows that government is least interested in saving lives of people. Steps taken to check spread of coronavirus is a public relations exercise meant for international consumption. Otherwise how is the religious ritual of shifting of Ram idol in Ayodhya going on? Could it not wait for a future date? http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=100492

31.           Indian response to COVID 19 and minorities: Mar., 29, 2020: In fact, it may well be too late. This lockdown is, in keeping with many of this government’s policies, a headline-grabbing initiative announced with little warning, but one that will do little to address the myriad problems India faces in dealing with the coronavirus. It puts responsibility for containing the outbreak on citizens, instead of instituting a robust official support system. It is needlessly punishing for the most vulnerable in society. It does nothing to solve this country’s problems with public health and safety. And everything that is wrong with India’s response flows from that period late last year through the early parts of this year, in which the government set the tone for what is undoubtedly the world’s harshest lockdown with police brutality, a lack of transparency, and a shortage of compassion. The restrictions themselves are onerous: Indians should not be leaving their homes, all businesses were ordered to close, and no transport—via plane, train, or bus—would be allowed. The prime minister called for social distancing, urged his compatriots to avoid spreading rumors, and pledged financial support to strengthen the health-care system. Yet the announcement of the lockdown was remarkable not just for its scope, but for its timing. Modi made his speech at 8:00 p.m. on March 24, saying the restrictions would come into force just after midnight and be in place for three weeks. By the time he spoke, shops had closed for the day, catching off guard people who had been repeatedly told not to panic-buy.   Elsewhere, such as in Britain, France, and Italy, grocery stores and pharmacies have remained open to provide essential services, but here, they are closed. While most wealthy and middle-class Indians will make it through these three weeks unscathed, able to hunker down, work from home, and access some modicum of entertainment, the country’s poor and its huge number of transient migrant workers (there are no official figures, but the most often cited number is 100 million) will struggle to survive. The government is offering little in the way of a safety net. Only after the lockdown came into force, and amid growing outrage, did the finance minister finally announce an aid package. Yet its $22 billion value is a pitiful amount compared with what governments elsewhere have provided:  India’s amounts to less than 1 percent of its GDP. It provides no help for day laborers or other workers in similar unorganized sectors. It contains no measures for migrant workers. The actual amounts of support—five kilograms of rice or wheat, and one kilogram of legumes, per person for the next three months, coupled with cash transfers, in some cases of 500 rupees, or $7, a month—have infuriated voters. Here in Goa, a lawyer has petitioned the high court to direct the state government to provide essential goods to the people, especially those who are living below the poverty line. For the poor, work has dried up entirely, and so those migrant workers who could sought to beat the lockdown by heading home in huge numbers. Since the restrictions came into force, buses and trains have stopped ferrying passengers across the country, leaving them to walk, often for days, with their families back to their towns and villages. Again, the authorities’ callousness has been on display: In one heartbreaking video that went viral, police in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh force young boys to perform frog jumps as punishment for violating the curfew. Another video shows police waiting outside a mosque in the southern state of Karnataka, beating worshippers with a stick as they leave. Similar cases of police brutality have been reported around the country, and social media have filled with messages of people running out of food yet afraid to leave their dwellings, fearful of the police. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/india-coronavirus-covid19-narendra-modi/608896/ 

32.                        Misuse of epidemic: Mar., 29, 2020: The Uttar Pradesh police arrested Dr. Ashish Mittal on March 23, 2020. At the time, chief minister Adityanath had already imposed a lockdown. Mittal, who was one of the many supporters of the women-led anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests had received warnings from the state police to get the dharna on Mansoor Park area of Prayagraj stopped, failing which “lawful action” could be taken against him. However, when he was arrested two days later, the Uttar Pradesh police bizarrely slapped the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, against the Allahabad-based doctor and another activist Umar Khalid, who was also put in police custody. https://thewire.in/rights/ashish-mittal-epidemic-act-uttar-pradesh

33.                        Kabul Sikh massacre: Mar., 30, 2020: The World Kashmir Awareness Forum (WKAF) has expressed outrage and condemned the terrorist attacks that has targeted the Karte Parwan Sikh Gurudwara in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 25 innocent human beings.WKAF in a statement issued in Washington said, “We are deeply saddened by the loss of life and our hearts go out to the bereaved families and friends. We ask that the Afghanistan government set-up an impartial Commission to investigate this heinous crime and bring the culprits to justice.” “The world community in general, and the Sikh community, in particular, have not forgotten the Chittisinghpura massacre on March 20, 2000, on the eve of President Bill Clinton’s visit to India. An internal investigation instituted by the Indian government under international pressure revealed that the massacre was the handiwork of the Indian agencies. These revelations by Lt. Gen. K. S. Gill, who was part of the investigation, that the personnel of the Indian army, along with the Indian government’s hired gunmen in Kashmir, were directly involved in the massacre were initially hushed up by the Indian government,” the statement added. According to Mr. Gill, WKAF said, their singular aim was to smear the Kashmir freedom struggle to enlist the sympathies of the then US president toward the Indian government’s narrative on Kashmir. “President Clinton has repeatedly refused to accept the Indian government’s contention that the massacre was the work of Pakistani groups.”“Similar cynical attempts by the Indian intelligence agencies and their collaborators in the Afghan intelligence network, in the past, have invariably aimed at implicating Pakistan and the Kashmiris in such acts of violence against civilians,” it said and added that these agencies relentlessly aim to achieve the twin goal of tarnishing the images of both Pakistan and the Kashmiris freedom movement and simultaneously sow a division among the Kashmiris and the Sikhs.“Such despicable attempts by the Indian government have failed to create a wedge between the Muslim and Sikh communities. The rank and file, and leadership of the two communities across the globe are united in friendship”.The WKAF expresses its solidarity with our global Sikh community demanded by probe by international agencies such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/03/29/india-has-failed-to-create-wedge-between-muslims-sikhs-wakf/

34.                        CAA and International community: Mar., 31. 2020: Many international legal experts, including the United Nations special rapporteur on minorities, say India's new citizenship law is discriminatory and are calling for international intervention. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) fast-tracks nationality for non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan but excludes Muslims - a step compared with US President Donald Trump's Muslim ban. Fernand de Varennes, the UN special rapporteur on minorities, told Al Jazeera that there is a danger that millions of members of minority groups such as Muslims will be denied citizenship."Many have opined that the exclusion of Muslims as a group from the ambit of the law constitutes an extreme example of discriminatory treatment and that the right of equality without discrimination - particularly if it has a 'racial' element - is one of the fundamental principles of international human rights," de Varennes told Al Jazeera.  Earlier this month, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, filed an intervention in the Supreme Court to challenge the CAA. India's top court is also hearing a petition from Muslims and liberal Indians, who say the law is against the country's secular constitution. Bachelet's petition emphasises that sovereign power is not unfettered and that even decisions regarding citizenship have to conform to the principle of non-discrimination. In February de Varennes and other UN special rapporteurs wrote an "open letter" to the Indian government expressing concerns about the discriminatory aspects of the CAA. The letter highlights that the "arbitrary" exclusion of Muslims and other minorities from the NRC would "perpetuate discrimination against them and perpetuate a climate of uncertainty, including fears of prolonged statelessness, detention or even deportation".  ".Experts warn that the CAA, coupled with the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), violates international law, specifically the prohibition on rendering people stateless. Nearly two million people were excluded from a citizenship list in the northeastern state of Assam where the NRC exercise was concluded last year. "What the NRC will create is a large group of stateless people, which in itself will run counter to the obligation in international law to prevent statelessness," Parvathi Menon, a lecturer at the Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Helsinki, says. Menon says the Indian government has already violated its international obligations by "returning" many Rohingya, claiming that they were "illegal' immigrants. Menon points to the position in Assam where "illegal immigrants" are now being housed in detention centres. India's Hindu nationalist government has deported some Rohingya refugees to Myanmar in violation of the principles of non-refoulement under refugee law. New Delhi, which considers the Muslim refugees a security threat, has vowed to deport them. According to Indian lawyer Shruti Panday, the NRC places the burden to prove Indian citizenship on the citizen, which could mean that "every citizen becomes a doubtful citizen". The impact on marginalised groups such as Muslims will be particularly detrimental, she says. The Indian Constitution recognises the right to equality and the equal application of the law. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which India is a signatory to, specifically prohibits arbitrary deprivation of nationality. The purpose of Bachelet's intervention was to highlight the High Commissioner's concerns that the CAA does not comply with India's human rights obligations. Disenfranchised. Dozens of people, mostly Muslims, have been killed in a police crackdown that has been criticised by rights groups. The Supreme Court refused to strike down the legislation and gave the government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi time to reply to pleas challenging the constitutionality of the CAA. In the third week of March, the Ministry of Home Affairs filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that preparation of the NRC was a "necessary exercise for any sovereign country for mere identification of citizens from non-citizens". It emphasised that it is not "taking away" anyone's citizenship, adding that the CAA "won't affect the legal, democratic or secular rights of people". Priya Pillai, an international lawyer, said that the international community should "keep the pressure on India".Pillai says she believes the UN High Commissioner's intervention is a signal of how seriously the issue of citizenship and potential statelessness is being taken by the international community."The impact on regional peace and security can also not be ruled out, especially if there is mass statelessness as a result of the law and policies being pursued", says Pillai. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/holdstopping-stateless-challenge-india-citizenship-law-200312071917304.html

35.                        Electoral changes: Apr., 1, 2020:   Modi revoked 370 and 35A, this was accepted by the majority of the Hindu population, only a few liberals protested, ( Sikhs also pretested) . CAA and NRC similarity was accepted by the Hindus majority, some liberals and minorities did protest. The AAP won an election in Delhi; all of this did not result in any political realignment. The Delhi massacre also did not evoke and large scale protests. The incompetent and shoddy way in which the lockdown has been imposed  has resulted in anger towards the BJP, the migrants have been very badly treated , with the police also contributing towards their misery, at least 22 have lost their lives in what is called the  largest human migration since the 1947 partition.  This resentment in lower class and Hindus has the potential of creating new political alliances, there will be need to formulate a platform that could align the interests of the minorities and lower class Hindu is a possible political realignment.

                    

Monthly update  6:  February 2020 : Muslims in India

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1.     Revival of Hate: Feb., 1, 2020: Seventy-two years ago, when the Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse, a follower of the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological fountainhead of today’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), pulled the trigger, he blamed it on Gandhi’s alleged emasculation of Hindus and generosity toward Muslims.Today, the same rhetoric is in action. A few days ago, Anurag Thakur, a junior minister of finance in the cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was campaigning for the forthcoming Delhi elections chanting “desh ke gaddaron ko goli maaro saalon ko” (“shoot all the traitors of the country”). Also recently, Shah, the second-in-command to Modi, told a crowd during a campaign event to “press the election button with such anger that Shaheen Bagh feels the current,” a reference to the Delhi neighborhood where Muslim women have been sitting in protest, singing revolutionary songs and launching a Gandhian Satyagraha to ensure the government revokes the citizenship bill that discriminates against Muslims and threatens to erase their existence. Enabled by this hate, the university attacker did the needful. Before he fired his pistol, in front of the police and the national media, he reportedly posted on his Facebook page that he was going to take revenge on the protesters of Shaheen Bagh. The posts repeated the provocative slogans that had been made by Modi’s ministers regarding the shooting of traitors. The gunman further wrote that if he was martyred while killing the anti-nationalists, his dead body should be covered in saffron. With that, a day to commemorate Gandhi’s martyrdom for an inclusive India turned into a brutal reminder of our steady decline into fascism and another reason for the world to be alarmed. A week ago, I was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In almost every interaction, I was asked by foreign dignitaries and diplomats “what is happening to Gandhi’s India?” I heard George Soros call out Modi. “The biggest and most frightening setback,” Soros said, came in India “where a democratically elected Narendra Modi is creating a Hindu nationalist state, imposing punitive measures on Kashmir, a semi-autonomous Muslim region, and threatening to deprive millions of Muslims of their citizenship.” The same day, the Economist ran a scathing cover story, under the headline “Intolerant India: Narendra Modi stokes divisions in the world’s biggest democracy." A secondary headline read: “India’s 200m Muslims fear the prime minister is building a Hindu state.” In the last eight months, multiple publications, including the New York Times, the London Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal and The Post, have dedicated multiple editorials calling called out Modi’s divisive agenda to polarize India on religious lines.

2.     EU Vote postponement: Feb., 1, 2020: European Union parliamentarians have voted to postpone a vote that criticises India's Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and its lockdown in Kashmir. The draft resolution had been brought by six groups representing 626 of 751 members of the European Parliament. The vote, which was expected to conclude on Thursday, will now not be held until the end of March.The resolution had described the CAA as "fundamentally discriminatory in nature", with one group saying the controversial bill had the potential to "create the largest statelessness crisis in the world".It also criticised a recent crackdown in Kashmir, including an internet shutdown and preventive detention measures. The vote will be held after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's March 13 visit to Brussels for a bilateral summit “I think the Europeans are giving Prime Minister Modi the benefit of the doubt because he will be coming to Brussels for a summit next month," Jyoti Malhotra, editor of national and strategic affairs at The Print website in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera. "It would have looked very bad for him had the European Parliament passed a resolution which was critical of the CAA and Kashmir. So I think both India and Europe are saving   "And in the context of Kashmir, we are now six months without any communication. So it is a crisis on which the European Parliament definitely needs to take an urgent stand." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/european-parliament-delay-vote-india-caa-kashmir-200131060153083.html

3.     Fascist India: Feb.,1, 2020: With each criticism, the prime minister has only become more committed to his brazen majoritarian agenda. Modi invokes Gandhi on his foreign trips but he’s bent on discrediting those calling for justice the Gandhian way. This week, a video circulated of police officers grilling 8-year-old students in a BJP-ruled state. The school was accused of promoting anti-national activity for staging a play against the prime minister’s citizenship bill. Now, someone has opened fire on peaceful student protesters — fueled by the hate coming from the country’s leaders. The fascism unleashed by Modi is at the doorstep of every Indian, the growing radicalization of the increasingly insecure Indian Hindu is turning into a dangerous threat for the plural and secular democracy of India. Modi and his allies in the government are stoking this insecurity, invoking Hindu supremacy in response to dissenting voices. Godse, who assassinated Gandhi, is being reinvented as a martyr for the Hindu cause, giving birth to those who imagine themselves as the foot soldiers of Hindu supremacy.But on the 72nd anniversary of Gandhi’s death, we must seek refuge in the comforting words of the Mahatma himself: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. … Always.”  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/31/hate-that-inspired-gandhis-assassin-is-rising-again/

4.     Police abuse protestors: Feb., 2, 2020: At 73 years old, Mohammad Shoaib had grown used to harassment from police. As one of India’s highest-profile activists, he had made a name fighting for Muslims falsely accused of being terrorists by the police, earning him powerful enemies. But in late December, as he was brought into the police station in Lucknow, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, in the middle of the night, he felt something had shifted. “Police officers abused me badly while I was in their custody and they threatened me in many ways,” he said. “One [senior officer] said to me at the police station: ‘I will fuck your mother. I am going to throw all your family members in jail where they will rot for life. I will destroy your family’.” As India erupted in protest over a controversial new citizenship bill late last year, Shoaib was among dozens of leading social and legal activists who began to be systematically and illegally targeted, rounded up and detained by police, with several tortured and most kept in prison on fabricated charges, without ever being presented to a magistrate, as the law requires. While the BJP government is notoriously intolerant of critics, the systematic crackdown on some of the most recognisable civil society activists has been unprecedented in both scale and fervour. It has also been concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP government led by chief minister Yogi Adityanath, known for his anti-Muslim and staunchly Hindu nationalist rhetoric, vowed “revenge” on those who had taken to the streets to protest at the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Police have been accused of firing on protesters, rounding up hundreds of innocent Muslims in the state and torturing men, women and children in custody. In seven cases recounted to the Observer, activists alleged they had been detained on entirely falsified charges by police. For Shoaib, his detention was particularly farcical. He stands accused of leading a protest that turned violent in Lucknow on 19 December, despite the fact it occurred while he was under police house arrest, having been detained the night before. “Police kept my house under watch and restrained me from going out. How could I possibly be present at the protest site, away from my home that afternoon?” he said. “Yet, the police charged me with attempted murder, arson and rioting. For years many police officers have viewed me as their enemy and now they are portraying me as a conspirator and violent rioter, without any basis.” After police failed to produce any evidence before a judge, Shoaib was bailed last month, following weeks behind bars. But the charges have not been dropped. “Activists are facing an increased level of pressure or crackdown,” he said of the past three months. “The government is trying to silence all types of dissent and shrink the space for activism. It is trying to break the backbone of activism in the state.” Sadaf Jafar, another prominent activist in Uttar Pradesh and spokesperson for the Congress political party, wept as she recounted the torture she says she endured when arrested on 19 December. She says she was arrested while protesting peacefully at the Lucknow rally against the new citizenship law, and was among those later facing 20 charges, including inciting violence and attempted murder. She was detained until early January, when a judge granted her bail due to lack of evidence. While in the police station, Jafar said, officers subjected her to relentless racist and Islamophobic slurs. “They started slapping and beating me, calling me ‘Pakistani’ and other language I could never repeat. “One of the female officers, who was filled with this anger, shouted: ‘I am going to beat you so hard I draw blood’,” said Jafar. “She pulled my hair and clawed my face and hands. And then another senior male officer told me he had seen me ‘talking big’ at the protest and that he would teach me a lesson; that he would charge me with attempted murder and make sure I ‘rotted in prison’. He pulled me down by my hair, kicked me in my stomach and knees… I have spent my life fighting for people’s rights but I never imagined the police would act in this way.” It is not just Muslim activists who report torture. Deepak Kabir, 46, a prominent Hindu poet and activist, said he had been arrested and badly beaten after he went into a police station to look for fellow activists. “They are going after activists because we are willing to fight,” he said. “It’s a very thought out process to target well-known faces because if they crush us, then everyone else is immediately intimidated.” SR Darapuri, 76, a former senior police officer turned activist, who has long irritated authorities in Uttar Pradesh with his outspoken comments about extrajudicial killings by police, alleged the police had gone to “extreme lengths” to arrest and then charge him with rioting, attempted murder and criminal conspiracy related to Lucknow protests that turned violent. “For 46 hours they kept me without food,” he said. “I am a retired senior police officer from the rank as high as inspector general and I was forced to endure such torture.” Darapuri described how, after his arrest at home on 20 December, police brought him before a magistrate, as is legally required before he could be sent to jail. But the magistrate refused to grant permission, citing lack of evidence, and criticised the officers for Darapuri’s “wrongful arrest”. But that did not stop them. “After taking me back to Hazratganj police station, the police officer recorded a report in which he stated that I had been taken to a magistrate but he was not available,” he said. “This was not the truth. The magistrate refused to remand me in custody because he believed I was innocent.” Activist Sadaf Jafar says she was kicked in the stomach and knee by a senior police officer and told she would ‘rot in prison’.  The same day, Darapuri was taken to jail where he was kept until 5 December, when he was bailed. At the hearing the Uttar Pradesh police failed to produce any evidence against him, claiming video footage of his alleged offences was “too hazy or grainy and none of the people there could be identified”. Yet the arrests of activists have continued. Last Wednesday, hours before he was due to address an anti-CAA rally in Mumbai, activist Dr Kafeel Khan was arrested by Uttar Pradesh Police Special Task Force for allegedly delivering a “provocative” speech in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, at a rally on 12 December. On Friday, police filed new complaints against Shoaib, Kabir and several other activists after they staged a peaceful candlelit vigil against the act. Sandeep Pandey, another prominent Lucknow-based activist involved in the anti-CAA protests described the escalation in attacks on critics. “My emails and phones have been kept under surveillance by the government,” he said. “We have been jailed before for activism-related activities but we used to get bail and come out of jail. Police didn’t misbehave with us. Now, in recent months, police have changed their attitude towards us and we are being badly abused by them… The rights activists are facing the worst crackdown in Uttar Pradesh; in no other state in India is the situation is as bad,” he said. “This is out and out a fascist regime.”  . https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/01/uttar-pradesh-india-activists-false-arrest-torture-custody-citizenship-amendment-act

5.     Saheen Bagh women fired at: Feb., 2, 2020: A suspected Hindu nationalist opened fire at an anti-government protest in India's capital on Saturday, police said, just days after an armed teenager shot and injured a student at a rally in the same city.The gunman fired into a large crowd of female demonstrators at a non-stop protest in New Delhi against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's contentious citizenship law that critics say discriminates against Muslims. No injuries were reported. Footage broadcast on local television stations showed a man in his 20s being taken away by police as he shouted that “only Hindus will prevail in the country “ The incident occurred in the New Delhi suburb of Shaheen Bagh, which has become the epicentre of protests against Modi's government since mid-December when parliament passed the law that grants citizenship to only non-Muslim nationals from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The back-to-back incidents come after a minister in Modi's government, Anurag Thakur, called on crowds at a rally to “shoot the traitors” earlier this week.Several members of Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have termed the protesters “anti-national” and “traitors”. https://www.dawn.com/news/1531873/suspected-hindu-radical-fires-at-protesters-in-india-in-2nd-such-incident-in-three-days,  https://www.hindustantimes.com/videos/caa-2019/watch-man-opens-fire-in-shaheen-bagh-taken-into-custody-by-police/video-FCfp9wbRkkltJp8bnj7Y0K.html

6.     AI: Feb., 2, 2020: Amnesty International has told the US lawmakers that the recently enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) stands in "clear violation" of the Constitution of India and international human rights law and "legitimises discrimination" on the basis of religion. The new citizenship law passed by Parliament in December 2019 offers citizenship to non-Muslim persecuted religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Amnesty International Asia Pacific Advocacy Manager Francisco Bencosme made the remarks during a testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations and House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee. The Indian Parliament “passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which legitimises discrimination on the basis of religion and stands in clear violation of the constitution of India and international human rights law,” Bencosme said https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/caa-in-clear-violation-of-indian-constitution-and-intl-human-rights-law-amnesty/1723337?fbclid=IwAR2F4UOfmJ46kQYGyMNR_0GSeVuxKw2yFClBE1oO0U47tFUXPoz0nvIswgI

7.     Punjab protest: Feb., 3, 2020: Nearly 20,000 Farmers, Women Take to Malerkotla Streets Against CAA. The women wore yellow clothing to symbolise oneness and chanted slogans that went, “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai, saaray kirtee bhai bhai“. While strongly condemning the brutal repression of peaceful protesters across the country, the leaders decried the government’s alleged efforts to establish a ‘Hindu rashtra’ and expressed solidarity with students of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia. On January 17, the Punjab state assembly passed a resolution demanding that the CAA be scrapped. State minister Brahm Mohindra had moved the resolution against the CAA on the second day of the two-day special assembly session.  https://thewire.in/rights/malerkotla-punjab-caa-rally

8.     Firing incident; Feb., 3, 3020: Another firing incident was reported at Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi Sunday night. Arshaan Afaq, an undergraduate law student, was present at the spot when two people opened fire from a moving vehicle. “The first shot was fired near gate number 5. And we heard another noise when it crossed gate number 1. Though no one was hurt, situation here is tense. We have noted the number of the vehicle.” Security guards at Jamia told officials that two persons came on a scooty from Okhla and moved towards Jullena. “They said the first shot was fired near gate number 6 and second near gate number 1,” an official said, requesting anonymity. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/another-firing-incident-reported-at-jamia-millia-islamia-university-in-delhi/story-fBYBDh0Sux9wDAfuzPYWLK.html

9.     US Congress: Feb., 4, 2020:   trouble for India over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and continued detentions in Kashmir is brewing just below the surface in the US Congress. Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal’s resolution asking the Indian government to lift all restrictions in Kashmir as soon as possible is alive and gathering support within the party, as well as quiet acquiescence from Republicans. The resolution, which now has 49 co-sponsors, including five Republicans, is still in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It has sat there since December 6 when it was introduced by Jayapal  While the resolution deals with the situation in the bifurcated union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, additional measures by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on who is and can be an Indian citizen have raised further questions. There is growing disquiet about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR) and how they might overlap and affect large numbers of Muslims in India. Confusion prevails over how each component of the alphabet soup might ultimately be implemented. India’s Republic Day celebrations in Washington saw more than a thousand protesters walk from the White House to the Indian Embassy against the CAA. Some read the preamble to the Indian constitution. The protest was peaceful except for a few heated exchanges between Pakistan-inspired elements and Indian community leaders.  It’s clear that Indian-American groups have become energised. Some analysts see a resurrection of the old anti-Modi “Coalition Against Genocide”, which prevailed in the US Congress to deny him a visa while he was chief minister of Gujarat. Shaik Ubaid, a New York area doctor and the founding president of the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), is back in the fray. With the help of larger Muslim advocacy organisations in the United States, such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ubaid’s group is leading an increasingly vocal campaign to pressure the US Congress to take cognisance of current developments in India. Last week, the IAMC organised a briefing for Congressional staffers and invited an array of critics to speak on the CAA and NRC. The 90-minute programme included speakers from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, US Commission on International Religious Freedom and Magsaysay awardee Sandeep Pandey, who spoke about his many personal run-ins with the Uttar Pradesh government. The master of ceremonies set the tone when he challenged the US government, asking why it hadn’t taken a strong stand against India. It’s “inconceivable” that with its massive intelligence capacity and diplomatic heft, the administration doesn’t know that millions of Muslims are about to be rendered “stateless”. John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, claimed the government of India and its embassies were putting out “misinformation”. He also claimed that India couldn’t argue that its moves are an “internal matter” because international law was being violated.While a state has the right to determine citizenship, it is not allowed to act in a discriminatory manner on the basis of race, religion, colour and ethnicity. India is a signatory to various covenants on human rights, which ask countries to curtail hate speech and curb xenophobia. He called India’s NPR “slow moving and insidious”. Franciso Bencosme of Amnesty International was even more strident. He said Amnesty had documented “a clear pattern of use of excessive force, arrests and bias in police and administrative response”. The prime minister’s “silence on police brutality and crackdown has spoken louder than his words”.He said the US Congress should address the situation as a human rights issue, not a partisan issue or liberalism vs fascism issue. Harrison Akins of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, an organisation that the Modi government has a special distaste for, repeated his group’s call for targeted sanctions against “individuals” – a veiled reference to India’s home minister Amit Shah. The US government has a “vast array of tools” which it must deploy to deal with the situation in India because the BJP and company are “reinventing the history and social landscape” of the country, he said. The barrage of criticism is likely to put some members of Congress off – as it has certain Indian American groups which refused to be part of this coalition. This time around the group is calling itself “Coalition to Stop Genocide” and lists among its supporters “Black Lives Matter,” a movement that came into being in the wake of several police shootings of unarmed black men. In addition, the coalition includes Left-leaning critics of India, earnest individuals who genuinely worry about India, secular Hindus but also some who have reportedly sent funds to extremist organisations in India. CAIR has money, outreach and influence – attributes that Indian American groups are looking for in their effort to increase pressure on the Modi government through legislative action. How far it succeeds in its goals remains to be seen. https://thewire.in/rights/anti-caa-activists-us-indian-americans

10.                        Seattle and CAA : Feb.,5, 020: The Alliance for Justice and Accountability (AJA), an umbrella organization of progressive South Asian groups across the United States in coordination with the local Seattle community, on February 4 lauded the City Council of Seattle for having unanimously passed Resolution 31926 denouncing India’s draconian Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).The resolution, introduced by Council member Kshama Sawant, besides opposing the CAA and NRC as fundamentally discriminatory and against India’s Constitution, affirms Seattle as a welcoming city and expresses the City Council’s solidarity with Seattle’s South Asian community regardless of religion and caste Council member Morales added “As a Jew, it was not lost on me that that resolution passed on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It is important that we stand up for human dignity, for the right of people to find refuge from violence regardless of their religion.” “We welcome the Seattle City Council’s resolution denouncing the divisive and draconian CAA and NRC. These acts are unconstitutional and designed to disenfranchise several million Muslim, Dalits and other minorities in order to create a fascist state.” said Javed Sikander, spokesperson for the Seattle chapter of the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC).Highlighting the importance of international condemnation, , Executive Director of Equality Labs, Thenmozhi Soundarajan said, “Seattle is leading the moral consensus in the global outcry against the CAA. When genocidal campaigns begin, one important intervention is international condemnation, and the Seattle community feels a deep sense of solidarity with their elected officials, as the time to stand against the Indian government’s Islamophobic policies is now. These genocidal projects happen in the shadows and this resolution highlights the significance of the Seattle City Council standing up for South Asian minorities, Muslims, and caste oppressed communities.”President of Indian American Muslim Council, Ahsan Khan said,”Seattle City’s decision to condemn CAA should be a message to all who wish to undermine pluralism and religious freedom. They cannot peddle in hate and bigotry, and expect to have international acceptability at the same time.”At a Congressional Briefing titled “Implications of India’s Citizenship Law (CAA)” in Washington, DC this week, Mr. Harrison Akins, Policy Analyst (South Asia) with the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) rightly stated, “In India today, the freedom of religion or belief is being decimated as individuals are targeted simply due to their religious identity, in violation of India’s own constitution.” Last month, the USCIRF had called for the US Government to sanction India’s Home Minister Amit Shah.At the same Congressional Briefing, Amnesty International, the world’s premier civil rights watchdog was represented by Francisco Bencosme, Asia Pacific Advocacy Manager. “The CAA, both in structure and in intent, is exclusionary and inconsistent with India’s Constitution and human rights obligation,” Mr. Bencosme said at the briefing. It “may deprive minorities of their citizenship in India. If implemented, this stands to create the biggest stateless crisis of the world causing immense human suffering,” Bencosme added  The briefing was also attended by John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director of the Human Rights Watch in the U.S. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that India ratified in 1979 “is very clear that you cannot deprive people of their citizenship on the basis of their race, color, descent, national or ethnic origins,” Sifton had said. Genocide Watch, an independent body that is widely considered to have expertise in the prediction of genocide in conflict-ridden areas around the world, has issued two separate genocide alerts for the states of Assam and Kashmir. Comparisons to Nazi Germany just before the onset of World War II are therefore quite apt. In Seattle, hundreds from the South Asian community and allied organizations have spoken out against the CAA and NRC, including over 400 people who rallied in Bellevue on January 26. Local organizations API Chaya, Tasveer, Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Washington, Seattle South Asians Building Accountability & Healing (SABAH), Khalsa Gurmat Center Federal Way, Gurudwara of Renton, Gurudwara of Auburn, Gurudwara of Kent, Gurudwara of Bothell, and the Seattle LGBTQ Commission joined national organizations Equality Labs, Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), Amnesty International USA, and the Ambedkar King Study Circle in calling for the passage of the resolution. Seattle-area residents recognize that international condemnation will apply pressure on the Indian government to account for the discrimination and violence perpetuated by the CAA and NRC.AJA has pledged to continue the struggle against India’s repressive policies against minorities and caste oppressed. https://indicanews.com/2020/02/04/seattle-becomes-the-first-us-state-to-denounce-caa-and-nrc/

11.                        Women protest in UP: Feb., 6, 2020:  another group of women over 160 km away – in the renowned Islamic seminary of Deoband in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district – had begun to feel restless. over 160 km away – in the renowned Islamic seminary of Deoband in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district – had begun to feel restless. and harsh one, with surprise rainfall on some days during the protest. A young, burkha-clad Fozia Usmani was among the first ones to have ignited the fire of resistance among the women of Deoband. “Resistance was building across the country. People who have always remained on the periphery were leading the movement against the Centre’s decision to pass these inhuman laws. I wanted to be a part of this historical human resistance, but did not quite know how to go about it,” Fozia, a political sciences student, told The Wire. But when Fozia reached out to other women in the town, she says the eagerness was infectious. Not just the Muslim women, but several women from Bahujan castes have also joined the protest. https://thewire.in/rights/anti-caa-protest-up-deoband

12.                        Sikhs join protest: Feb., 7, 2020: Dal Khalsa spokesman Kanwarpal Singh along with his teammates expressed solidarity with Muslim community by paying visit at Shaheen Bagh where anti-CAA protest has been going on since last 51 days. He warned the BJP government against terrorizing and harming the protesters. The delegation of the Dal Khalsa also visited Jamia Millia Islamic University and Hauz Rani to join hands with Muslim community in rejecting the CAA combined with NRC. Terming the new amendments as divisive and discriminative, Kanwar Pal Singh asked the government to withdraw the amendments. Slamming the Hindutva brigade for stoking communal fire in the country to polarize the society in view of Delhi assembly polls, he said HM Amit Shah was pitting Hindus against Muslims.While referring to firing incident at Jamia in which Kashmiri student was injured, Kanwarpal Singh said by sponsoring violence through non state actor the government has indirectly admitted its moral defeat.  https://www.sikh24.com/2020/02/06/sikhs-join-anti-caa-protests-at-shaheen-bagh-hauz-rani-and-jamia-millia-islamia-university/#.XjykMfkzbIU

13.                        Muslim Youth killed : Feb., 7, 2020: “Jaipur se hum ek ek Kashmiri ko nikal denge,” (We will take every Kashmiri out of Jaipur) Sufyan Rafiq, the only eyewitness to Basit Khan’s beating told The Quint on Friday, 7 February, a day after Khan succumbed to his injuries in a hospital in Jaipur. A 17-year-old Kashmiri boy, Basit Khan, who was doing a part-time job in Jaipur to support his family was thrashed by a mob on the night of 5 February. Khan succumbed to his injuries at 8:30 pm on the night of 6 February and, by the afternoon of 7 February, his body was sent via a private ambulance to Kashmir. Basit belonged to a poor family from Kupwara in Kashmir. His father died in 2012. He was the oldest in the house, with three younger sisters and a brother. “The family has had to pay Rs 30,000 to get the body to Kashmir. They are very poor and he had come here to work to help the family financially. He was in class 11 and was doing part-time work at an events company to make some money.” Basit and Rafiq, both from Kashmir, went to work at an event on the evening of 5 February. When they returned, they got into a fight with a few other boys on the organising team. “Basit wanted to sit in front as he was tired. This enraged a boy from Mumbai and he held on to Basit’s collar. They started beating him up. One of the boys, Aditya, was repeatedly hitting Basit on the head,” Rafiq, an eyewitness to the beating, told The Quint.  Rafiq said they held him down so he could not help Basit. “After beating him the driver dropped us a few kms away from our home. In the cab, the boys kept complaining about the increasing number of Kashmiri’s at work. After getting dropped, he and I walked and walked. He kept falling. As soon as we reached home he began to cry. Then he started vomiting. In the cab on the way to the hospital, he fell unconscious.”Rafiq said the doctors operated on him but said his chances of survival were meagre. He died at 8:30 pm on 6 February.His statement has been recorded by the Rajasthan Police and the accused have been booked under Sections 307 (attempt to murder), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC on 6 February.After Basit’s death on 7 February, the police incorporated the section 303 of the IPC (murder) into the FIR.https://www.thequint.com/news/india/kashmiri-boy-dies-after-being-attacked-assaulted-by-mob-in-rajasthan?fbclid=IwAR0RNhLGdmT409NdTZSve3Yy1nF0s9lQoiNTjj_8RHTH2Qjyy48FYsAiPrQ

14.                        Muslims fired at: Feb., 8, 2020: Two men on Friday fired four rounds in northeast Delhi’s Jaffrabad area and flee, despite heavy security presence in the area for February 8 Delhi elections. Police said that the men, both wearing helmets, shot twice at a garments shop and then fired two rounds in the open. Senior police officers said they suspected personal enmity behind the incident. However, the shop owner claimed that neither did they owe money to anyone nor did they have any enmity. No one was hurt in the incident The owner of the garment shop, Shabir Khan,50, who lives in Babarpur, said he has no enmity with anyone. “I was sitting in the sun outside my shop when the two men came on a bike and fired two bullets at my shop and twice in the open. My brother Murtaza Khan and I run this shop together. We don’t owe any money to anybody. Police is trying to cover up the incident as a case of personal enmity because it happened just hours before Delhi goes to polls. The incident happened just as locals were getting ready to offer their afternoon prayers,” he said https://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/hours-before-delhi-polls-bike-borne-gunmen-fire-four-rounds-in-jaffrabad-no-injuries/story-cZl7EpmvAPveUWxWesRfdN.html

15.                        CAA discussed : Feb., 9,2020: India’s controversial citizenship law, which many believe discriminates against Muslims, discussed at a panel discussion in Istanbul on Saturday.The panel was organized by Istanbul-based think tank the South Asia Strategic Research Center (GASAM) and Istanbul-based Humanitarian and Social Research Center (INSAMER  India has been witnessing extensive protests against the law since it was cleared by the country's parliament and received presidential approval on Dec. 12. “When the young people crowded the squares incredibly, this [action] in a way encouraged everyone who were hesitant whether to support it or not,” Unlu said.“We have seen that people of all ages or beliefs somehow support the protests by getting inspiration from these young people,” he added. Last week, Amnesty International warned that India was becoming a dangerous place for peaceful protesters, citing ruling party leaders' remarks against demonstrators protesting the controversial citizenship law. Underlining the importance of support by the young people, Unlu said: “I think the youth in India should give the same support for the Kashmir issue, too.” “Until now in India, there was a system which every segment of society from Muslims to Hindus, from Sikhs to all other segments, were part of the nation, but now when you try to define the nation only through Hindus, you put dynamite at the root of the whole system,” Unlu added.   “We observe that what causes migration in other countries is already beginning in India,” he said. Demir also called on the UN to stop human rights violations in the region.   “In the last UN General Assembly meeting, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, they all agreed to hold a summit conference to discuss the Muslim issues, because the Muslim organization representing all Muslims, the OIC [Organization of Islamic Cooperation], is not delivering,” he said. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/india-s-citizenship-law-discussed-at-istanbul-panel/1728352

16.                        BJP may lose in Dehli: Feb., 9,0202: Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was a distant second behind the upstart Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man's Party, led by former tax inspector Arvind Kejriwal, according to exit polls released after voting ended. An average of nine exit polls showed Kejriwal's party was likely to win 52 out of 70 seats.“We are winning by a huge margin,” tweeted Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief minister of Delhi https://www.dawn.com/news/1533206/exit-polls-predict-modi-defeat-as-delhi-votes-in-key-election

17.                        Women protest in Mumbai: Feb., 11, 2020: The sea of women in black cannot be missed. Seated on a half-a-kilometre stretch of Morland Road in Nagpada are hundreds of burqa-clad Muslim women protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). This bustling part of the metropolis located in central Mumbai is home to a Muslim majority, whose women are sitting in protest on an under-construction road. The protesters have given the area a new name — Mumbai Bagh — in solidarity with the women protesting against CAA-NRC in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh. The 2,000-odd women who protest at the site in shifts devised according to the needs of their families are from Nagpada, Agripada, Madanpura and other places close by. Lending support to the protest are other women from all walks of life and cutting across the religious divide  “I want Ambedkar’s law back, not this new law. I fear for the future generations of my family,” said Kulsum.. “I have lived my life in India. I am here for my children. They should not be thrown out of their own country,” said Kamrunissa. The protesting women have among themselves planned their vigil timetable ensuring that the site always has at least 400-500 women at any given time. The schedule has been worked around the water supply schedule in the area, children’s school hours, cooking and household responsibilities. A majority of them cook only once a day so they can reach the protest site well in time to relieve those who need to go home. They confess the support their families gives them the strength to carry on. When this reporter visited the area, policewomen posted at the barricaded entrance of Morland Road could be seen refusing to let women residents living on both sides of the road enter their apartment blocks. Though several women pleaded to be allowed to go to their houses, the policewomen continued to act tough, followed by frayed tempers and arguments. “The police are trying to anger the residents of the area by not allowing them into their houses. This way the residents will get angry at the protesters and demand that they move out,” said a shopowner. According to one of the shopkeepers, local leaders belonging to various political parties are pressurising them to stop helping the protesters. “They are threatening to make the police file cases against us. Our sisters are protesting for us. Their success is our success,” said the shopkeeper, who did not wish to be named  Mehr Ansari (33), a fashion designer and beautician, is a volunteer at the site. “We will not vacate this site until the Maharashtra government does not pass a resolution that CAA and NRC will not be implemented in Maharashtra. We want legislative assurances not mere words,” she said. “Our sisters at Shaheen Bagh give us strength. They have been fired at but they have not moved. We will be here until the Shaheen Bagh sisters do not call off their protest,” said Mehr  “This protest has helped the Muslim community come together among themselves and with the non-Muslims,” said Juveriya Khan (20), a medical student from Badlupura in Nagpada. According to social activist Feroze Mithiborwala, a Mumbai Bagh Committee comprising some local politicians and. Muslim maulvis has been set up by those who planned this women’s protest. “There are no women in this committee. The women are not consulted but only told what to do,” said Mithiborwala. “Anger is building up against the committee as the women do not want these leaders to compromise their protest,” said Mithiborwala.  According to the volunteers, over three-fourths of the protesting women are educated who speak English. They belong to well-to-do families or are working professionals. The melange consists of homemakers, management graduates, software professionals, self-employed professionals, financial consultants, marketing executives etc., all trying to make the protest a success  Like her, there are many who have fine-tuned their understanding of not just politics but also their own status as Muslims. “Woh todenge, hum jodenge (they will break, we will unite)” is the slogan that rents the air. At a far corner, a non-Muslim girl is teaching guided meditation to a group of protesters to help them get over stress. Mithiborwala and his team of volunteers from the areas surrounding Nagpada keep the women “protected” from the political manoeuvres of the local politicians. These politicians have tried to manipulate the protesters through intimidation. “They tell the women that the police will file cases against them if they do not call off the protest. For many of them, the longest distance they have travelled is to the local market from their homes,” said Mithiborwala. “They are very strong and are rooted to the spot. They make sure that the numbers here are always large so that the police cannot manhandle them or move them out  The police have denied permission to put up a large tent in the area or use megaphones. When it gets too hot under the sun, the women move into shady areas but do not leave the venue.“Hum jeetenge,” Kulsum said with confidence. https://theprint.in/india/muslim-women-come-up-with-mumbai-bagh-in-solidarity-with-delhis-shaheen-bagh/361278/

18.                        Protestors lathi charged: Feb., 12, 2020: Police allegedly lathicharged at hundreds of protesters, including residents of Jamia Nagar and students of Jamia Millia Islamia, after stopping them from marching towards parliament as many as 10 women have been manhandled by police and are being treated. “I have been hit on my private parts by cops with boots. One of the woman cops took off my burkha and hit me on my private parts with a lathi,” a student protester said to the portal. Unconfirmed accounts on social media say that nearly 40 people are being treated for minor injuries. Sources told The Wire that some women protesters were allegedly manhandled by police. The protesters, including Jamia alumni, were led by the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) and were walking in protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the impending National Register of Citizens (NRC).  “It has been two months that we are protesting. No one from the government has come to talk to us, so we want to go to talk to them,” said Zeba Anhad, a protester, to PTI.  . https://thewire.in/rights/anti-caa-rally-jamia-lathicharge

19.                        Arrests: Feb., 13, 2020: A Muslim mother and teacher have landed in jail after a school play involving nine to 12-year-olds became the subject of international attention, according to the BBC.“I’m not sure how I ended up here,” says 26-year-old Nazbunnisa, a single mother from Bidar, Karnataka, and who works as a domestic help. She was arrested on January 30, along with Farida Begum, a teacher at her daughter’s school. The charge against them: sedition, which the women, deny. Both women were on the verge of tears when they spoke to the BBC and said they were trying to be strong but their lives had turned upside down. The women are accused of spreading “false information” and of “spreading fear among [the] Muslim community” and of using children to insult India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. It started with a play at the Shaheen School in Bidar, where Nazbunnisa’s daughter studies and Farida Begum, 52, teaches. The play was about a controversial new citizenship law, which has polarised India since it was passed in December by the BJP.  Nazbunnisa is perplexed as to why she was arrested. She says her daughter was rehearsing for the play at home but she did not know what it was about or what the CAA or NRC controversy was about. “I did not even go to see her play,” she added. https://www.samaa.tv/global/2020/02/indian-muslim-mother-teacher-sent-to-jail-over-school-play/

20.                        Minorities in India: Feb., 13, 2020: According to the 2018 NCRB report, marginalised communities are over-represented in Indian jails People from marginalised sections — Muslims, dalits and tribals — are over-represented in Indian jails, shows a recent National Crime Records Bureau report. The 2011 Census shows that the proportion of Muslims, dalits and tribals in India’s population is 14.2%, 16.6% and 8.6%, respectively. But, it is a completely different picture when it comes to undertrial inmates. They make up three-fourths of the total prison-population with 19.7% Muslims, 21.6% dalits and 11.8% tribals.   Detainees Most of the detainees are held for offences against public tranquillity or as a preventive measure. In four of the 10 years for which this data was analysed, Muslims accounted for over 30% of the detainees — more than double of their share of the country’s population. Undertrials The combined proportion of SCs and STs is a little over 25% in India’s total population. When it comes to undertrial population, it was around 35% for many years. Muslims make up 14% of India’s population but constituted about 20% of all undertrials. The number of undertrial prisoners rose from 2,93,058 in 2016 to 3,23,537 in 2018, or 10.4%. At the end of 2018, the states with most number of undertrials included Uttar Pradesh with 75,206, followed by Bihar at 31,488 and Maharas 26,898, respectively     https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/in-a-minority-but-a-major-presence-in-our-prisons/articleshow/73266299.cms

21.                        US Senators on Kashmir: Feb., 14, 2020:  . In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sens. Chris Van Hollen, Todd Young, Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham expressed concern that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has blocked the internet in the Jammu and Kashmir region for months."India has now imposed the longest-ever internet shut down by a democracy, disrupting access to medical care, business and education for seven million people. Hundreds of Kashmiris remain in 'preventive detention,' including key political figures," said the bipartisan group of senators in the letter. The government's steps, including the Citizenship Amendment Act, "threaten the rights of certain religious minorities and the secular character of the state," they wrote. The senators requested information in 30 days about the number of political detainees in Kashmir, restrictions on the internet and cell phone service, access for foreign diplomats, journalists and observers and on religious freedom. They also seek to know the number of people who are at risk of being stateless, deported or locked up as a result of the citizenship law and whether Indian authorities are employing "excessive use of force" against protestors. The letter came nearly two weeks before the White House announced that Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will travel to India on Feb. 24 and 25, marking his first presidential visit to South Asia’s largest country. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/us-senators-request-assessment-on-kashmir-issue/1732529

22.                        Peaceful Muslim women and violent Hindus : Feb., 15.2020: On January 26, Republic Day, 2020, while protests simmered against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) throughout India, a dozen North American cities also witnessed historic protests. Indian Embassies have been witness to protests in the past. But this time it was different.In Washington DC, 800 Indian Americans, many of whom had driven hours from neighbouring states, assembled at lawns on south side of White House. Marching towards the Embassy, they were supported by police who stopped traffic at junctions to let the kilometre long march pass. When they reached Embassy they were met by 20 to 30 supporters of CAA/NRC. Protestors report that pro-CAA/NRC rally appeared to be assembled by the Embassy as part of its duty towards the government.,The disparity in numbers seemed to suggest that the Sangh Parivar's juggernaut, on the roll since Narendra Modi came to power first time in 2014, might be losing steam in its most prosperous diaspora. In Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New York and San Francisco, protests were held outside the Indian Consulates, with Chicago claiming the largest attendance of 3,000-4,000. The spirit of the protests was remarkable. Creative placards and slogans were used by protestors. They sang national anthem and 'Sare jahan se achcha..' Dalit rights activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan said, 'The CAA is an integral part of Modi government's strategy of creating a stateless Muslim population, that can be profiled, treated as second class citizens, and imprisoned in massive detention centres already being built in India.' She further added, 'This project may start with Muslims but all caste oppressed communities are at risk as we are the communities in the crosshairs of Hindu nationalists,' advocating, 'The time to stop genocide is before it starts. If one were to ignore the location, one could imagine that the protests seemed to be taking place in India; the political speeches being made seemed grounded in Dalit and Muslim experience as well as authentically representing the angst of middle class Hindus who felt that the Sangh Parivar does not speak for their understanding of Hinduism. Back in India, Shaheen Bagh is multiplying. There are more than two dozen ongoing protests in Delhi. In addition, small groups of Muslim women hold nighttime candle light demonstrations between two protest sites and youth raise 'Azadi' slogans. The mood is celebratory. The atmosphere is reminiscent of Durga Puja where every locality vies with the other in setting up their pandal. There are tents set up wherever a group of Muslim women have organised themselves to come out on streets. Photographs of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr BR Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad can be seen in almost every protest site indicating that people treat this movement as a second freedom struggle to free this country from forces which are bent upon taking away their freedom.The Khureji site also has a portrait of Rohith Vemula, drawing inspiration from more recent icons who've sacrificed their lives fighting against forces which are a threat to democracy. The more elightened protests like the one at Chandbagh displays pictures of Fatima Shaikh and Savitribai Phule, two women who involved themselves in grassroots education of downtrodden communities for their empowerment.But the real force of the movement is women who stay put at protest sites until late in the night or early morning. They are determined to see the struggle through. Children can be seen sleeping covered by blankets and quilts next to their mothers. Reversing common practices, such as keeping women behind curtains in Jamat-e-Islami meetings, or not letting them speak when men are present, women are in the lead and men are playing supporting role. Young, educated women are in control of conducting the proceedings and men are standing on the side. Nobody would have imagined that India would see such a dramatic empowerment of Muslim women so soon.The non-violent anti-CAA-NRC are not going to disappear in spite of best efforts, including one that of dialogue, by the government. And it is empowerment in real sense as each of the women coming to the protest, unlike traditional political meetings where common citizens are there just to swell numbers, can explain why they are there. They are raising slogans, singing songs and sometimes also making speeches. Our democracy and Constitution, which at one point were under danger of being eclipsed by the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo, now seem to be in safe hands. The difference is now people don't expect the leaders to protect them; the people have come together to protect the democracy and Constitution from leaders. As the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) or its ideological parent Rashtriya Swayansewak Sangh (RSS) became more desperate for a win in Delhi elections, immediately after being displaced from power in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, its leaders, including a central minister, raised slogans which unleashed gun wielding young men on streets who tried to sabotage what has been a very disciplined struggle against CAA-NRC so far or create a situation which could polarise the votes in BJP's favour at the last moment. It is India's misfortune that for the first time after independence an organisation has captured political power which ideologically believes in violence and inciting people to promote itself politically. The irony is that the Hindutva and the Western world construct Islam as an agressive religion. Hindus like to perceive their religion as a messenger of peace to the world. But currently Hindutva is all fire and spite whereas Muslim women have become the country's apostles of peace. .The non-violent anti-CAA-NRC are not going to disappear in spite of best efforts, including one that of dialogue, by the government. The ever enlarging protests are going to go on until either the CAA-NRC go or the government itself goes. https://www.counterview.net/2020/02/ironical-hindutva-is-all-fire-and-spite.html

23.                        AAP Victory: Feb., 17, 2020: Last week, India'sruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) faced a massive rebuff in the local legislative election in Delhi. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a relatively new and small political party, swept the polls, winning 62 seats and leaving only eight for the BJP in the 70-member Delhi assembly. Delhi does not have the status of a full state and the election for its assembly used to be rather low-key until 2015 when the BJP made it a high-pitched affair. That year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself led its campaign but, despite deploying his huge party machinery, he faced a humiliating defeat at the hands of the then-novice AAP, securing only 3 seats. This year, the BJP's campaign in Delhi was led by Amit Shah, India's home minister considered to be Modi's right-hand man and close confidant, but he too was unable to lead the party to victory. While some opposition-minded commentators welcomed the BJP's defeat in Delhi as a crack in its monopoly of power, what happened in this election cannot be celebrated. The BJP's electoral defeat is not really a sign of its political weakness or the decline of its political project. To the contrary, the Delhi election demonstrated that, in fact, the ruling party has been successful in pushing its political opponents to the right and forcing them to play by its rules. It is also continuing to shape the Indian electorate, carving out of it a Hindu constituency that fully embraces its Hindu nationalist agenda. Taking advantage of the Muslim face of the anti-CAA protests, the BJP tried to create a Muslim scare in the minds of Hindus, claiming that the Shaheen Bagh protests were a threat to the integrity of India and that the protesters were traitors and agents of Pakistan. The AAP maintained a studied silence about the protests throughout the campaign. Not only did its leaders keep a physical distance from the sites of the protests, where its electorate was expressing its apprehensions about the policies and intentions of the ruling Hindu majoritarian party, they even refrained from making statements about it. They argued that the elections were about the state of Delhi and should be fought on issues of public amenities like water, electricity, health and education. Then when BJP functionaries accused the AAP of sponsoring demonstrations, the AAP's leader, Arvind Kejriwal, felt compelled to respond. He accused the BJP of trying to make the vote about the protest and claimed that if he had power over the police force, he would have cleared the Shaheen Bagh area in two hours". At the same time, Kejriwal also made an effort to prove his Hindu credentials by using Hindu symbolism in his campaign. He went as far as reciting the Hanuman Chalisa, a devotional hymn to Lord Hanuman, and visiting a Hindu temple on the eve of the election to prove his piety.In the end, the AAP's strategy proved successful. Hindus, especially low-income communities, voted for a party they saw as an efficient provider of basic services like water, electricity, health and education. Muslims, on the other hand, had no choice. They made a tactical decision to support the AAP, despite its silence on their victimisation, as the other opposition party - the Indian National Congress - stood no chance.  For the BJP, the Delhi election was not as important as the electoral platform it offered to promote its Hindu nationalist vision  them  The BJP is trying to work on the Hindu mind and transform it to an extent where it defines itself only in exclusion of or opposition to Muslims. The growing political distance between Hindus and Muslims further aggravates the situation and deepens the mistrust that Hindus nurse towards Muslims. The BJP keeps harping on these faultlines and, by doing so, is shaping a Hindu vote bank. In the long term, the transformation of the Indian electorate into a Hindu one would guarantee the BJP's indefinite stay in power. This process is also forcing opposition parties to adopt the BJP's rhetoric and policies in order to stay "relevant" on the political scene. As parties like Congress are slipping into obscurity with their stance in defence of pluralism and minority rights, survivors like the AAP have a chance of "winning", at least at a local level, by keeping silent on "Muslim issues" and backing the anti-Muslim policies of the central government.In this sense, the huge majority the AAP got in Delhi by using this strategy is no solace to Muslims. The AAP had backed the abrogation of article 370 and division of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which Muslim communities have protested against. Most of the opposition parties have also welcomed the announcement of a Ram temple trust, which is to raise funds to build a Hindu temple at the location of the destroyed Babri mosque. With their complicity, central policies targeting Muslims will continue unabated and India will keep going down the majoritarian path that the BJP has put it on. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/delhi-election-making-hindu-voting-bank-200216085214539.html

24.                        State terrorism: Feb., 16, 2020: Dehli police, unproved, beat up university students in a library . Jamia Milia Islamia's CCTV footage shows security forces entering and beating students who were studying in the library. This is from 15 December 2019 when a student lost sight in one eye after the clash. https://www.facebook.com/najmi.zuberi/videos/10219393762248959/

25.                        UK member of Parliament denied entry: Feb., 17, 2020: Debbie Abrahams, a Labour Party Member of Parliament who chairs a parliamentary group focused on Kashmir, was unable to clear customs after her valid Indian visa was rejected. Abrahams has been an outspoken critic of the August 5, 2019 abrogation of Article 370. Shortly after the changes to Kashmir’s status were passed by Parliament, Abrahams wrote a letter to India’s High Commissioner to the UK, saying the action “betrays the trust of the people” of Kashmir. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/british-mp-debbie-abrahams-who-chairs-uk-kashmir-panel-denied-entry-to-india-6272305/?fbclid=IwAR215RLIyahdgxWlQq3wBl767kOiytMNgt3PDkk1R7z8bvfk4Yh83AysFyI

26.                        Women molested: Feb., 18, 2020: Swati Singh describes how excited she was to attend her first college festival in the Indian capital, New Delhi. On February 6, the last day of the three-day festival, as students were preparing for a concert, hundreds of men barged into the college campus and sexually harassed and abused female students. Singh says she cannot forget the horror she went through at Gargi college, an all women's college affiliated to Delhi University."I was looking forward to the fest. It means a lot to women like me who come from smaller cities and have never seen such big concert," says 18-year-old Singh, who hails from the central Indian city of Indore. Students accuse the police and security guards of doing little as the men molested women at the college, which is located in the affluent south Delhi area of Siri Fort. "They were drunk men who groped us, pinched us in the crowd. One of them even threw money on my friend in a demeaning way. We couldn't even move," recalls Samra Ahmed, another student.  Students could not make calls for help as phone jammers were installed at the nearby Siri Fort auditorium. "I saw some drunk men masturbating while looking at me," Tanushree, a second-year student, tells Al Jazeera. Singh says when she approached a police constable outside the college gate, he said, "Don't you come to the fest to meet boys?" "Police think women attend a music concert for this?" she wonders. Several videos of the festival have surfaced that appear to show the police standing by and watching men scaling the walls to enter the college campus. Samvedna, another student, says a stalker followed her to the metro station on her way home after the festival. When she complained to the police, she says she was told: "Look at the clothes you are wearing. Is this how Indian girls should dress? Should I call up your parents?" Singh says she was disappointed with the reaction of Promila Kumar, the college head. "She told us that if you feel unsafe in a college fest, don't attend. Even a woman's college is not safe for us?"  The students staged a three-day strike demanding Kumar's resignation and an investigation into the incident.  The police arrested 10 people in connection with the incident but they were all released on bail on the same day.   On Sunday, video footage - said to have been taken on December 15 last year - was released that appeared to show police beating students inside the library of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University, also located in New Delhi. In early January, police were accused of turning a blind eye to attacks on students protesting against a fee hike by masked men linked to the governing party inside Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi. More than a month after the incident, no arrests have been made. Four days after the Gargi College incident, police personnel baton-charged hundreds of students from JMI who were trying to march from the university campus to Parliament in protest against a new citizenship law. In the last two months, videos of young women braving police assault to save male protesters have become synonymous with the anti-CAA protests.  Many female students at JMI have accused the police of using excessive force against them during the February 10 march. Raziya, a JM  student, says she was beaten on her private parts with a flash rod. "They said, 'These women shield terrorists with their burqa. Take them in a corner and teach them a lesson'," said Raziya, who is undergoing treatment for a rib fracture."Why did they target our hijab. What is wrong with it?" she told Al Jazeera. Iqra, an 18-year-old student at JMI, says she was also beaten by a male constable with a stick on her private parts and her legs. "It was a preplanned attack specifically targeting young women who have been proactive in these protests," she said. Chanda Yadav, another Jamia student, said she was taunted by the police: "You protect men because you think we will not hit you?" She says a male policeman hit her with a flash rod on her thigh. The recent incidents have raised questions about the safety of women in public spaces, particularly in Delhi which has seen a high number of sexual assaults against women.  "Young women are representing all intersections of the society - Dalit, Muslims, tribals, everyone. This has shaken the government. That is why the police has been instructed to break their determination, weaken them and send them home, show their place in a patriarchal world." https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/lesson-indian-women-accuse-delhi-police-abuse-200214073937259.html

27.                        Women protest: Feb., 18, 2020: Tens of thousands of Punjabi Muslim women, several in burqas, peopled the massive rally against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at Malerkotla in Sangrur district on Sunday.Crowds from across Punjab converged at the city’s Dana Mandi (literally, grain market), where under the leadership of the state’s 14 democratic organisations, mainly the left-leaning farmers’ and students’ bodies, led a massive demonstration. The protesters accused the central government of carrying out a “communal agenda of targeting the country’s Muslim community”. Religious harmony was the toast of the protest which saw Muslims and Sikhs come together and raise slogans against the government at the centre. Loud applause followed fiery speeches on stage. He raised the slogan, “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai, aapas mein hai behen bhai’, and the crowds joined in.“Yes, the countrywide protests are successful because of our Muslim sisters,” Mander added. https://thewire.in/rights/malerkotla-anti-caa-protest

28.                        UN Chief on CAA: Feb., 19, 2020: United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said he is concerned that “there is a risk of statelessness” for the two million people, mostly of Muslim origin excluded by the divisive Citizenship Amendment Act passed by the Indian parliament. When asked if he was personally concerned about the rising discrimination against minorities in India, Mr Guterres exclaimed, “Of course!” as it is pertinent that whenever nationality laws are changed, efforts are taken to avoid statelessness and to ensure that every citizen of the world is also a citizen of a country. In an exclusive interview to Dawn News, the UN chief was asked about reports in the international media, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and recent fact-finding reports on Kashmir released in New Delhi, regarding torture, sexual abuse and incarceration of children as young as seven by the Indian military. He said all these reports, including two by the UN High Commissioner, played an important role in “clarifying exactly what is happening” in Kashmir and “it is essential that these reports are taken seriously”. When asked by this scribe why the UN has failed to constitute a high-powered inquiry commission to go to the Indian occupied valley and investigate the atrocities committed there, the secretary general said: “Only the governing bodies of the UN or the Security Council can make that decision, but these reports are credible, relevant and very important.”He was eager to acknowledge that the current structure of the UN and veto power to only its five permanent member states were hampering the ability of the UN to deliver the very objective it was created for — conflict resolution. The rules-based system that came post-World War II was a result of a cohesion amongst western countries which is rapidly dissipating yet the top bureaucrat thought the UN was not threatened as much as it was challenged by this new reality.In order to ensure increased efficacy of the UN, he felt the body had to be reformed to be made “more democratic, more open and more effective” and to be more representative of the multilateral world we live in today.    https://www.dawn.com/news/1535354/un-chief-concerned-about-discrimination-against-muslims-in-india

29.                        USCIRF: Feb., 20, 2020: The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)issued a India Factsheet-“ In December 2019, the Indian Parliament passed into law the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). This law provides a fast track to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Quickly after the CAA’s passage, large scale protests broke out across India with the government instituting a violent crackdown against the protestors. In conjunction with a proposed nation-wide National Register of Citizens, there are fears that this law is part of an effort to create a religious test for Indian citizenship and could lead to the widespread disenfranchisement of Indian Muslims. This factsheet provides an overview of the CAA and explains why it represents a significant downward turn in religious freedom in India. “https://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases-statements/uscirf-releases-new-factsheet-india-s-citizenship-amendment-act

30.                        Anti CAA protests spreads: Feb., 20, 2020:   thousands of ‘Shaheen Baghs’ that have emerged across India are helping to gradually expand the reach of the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests. A significant win for the protesters is that the participation of non-Muslims in the protests is steadily increasing. Particularly significant is the rising involvement of Sikh, Dalit, Adivasi and farmers’ groups in the protests. However, there are state-wise variations, with participation from non-Muslim groups more pronounced in non-BJP ruled states Maharashtra: On 15 February, there was a massive protest at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan. Besides local Muslims, several Dalit, Bahujan and neo-Buddhist groups also participated in the protest. An important organisation which mobilised people for the Azad Maidan protest was the Chhatrapati Sambhaji Brigade. Chhatrapati Sambhaji Brigade poster for the 15 February Azad Maidan protest(Image: Twitter)Sachin Kamble, leader of the Chhatrapati Sambhaji Brigade says that Bahujan communities must recognise the threat that CAA and NRC pose to them Kamble explains that RSS and BJP have tried to “subjugate” Bahujan communities by “feeding them the poison of Hindutva and hatred against Muslims”.“RSS feeds SC, ST & OBC communities lies about Muslims to keep them under their Brahminical authority. This is nothing but a way to increase their oppression. This poison is the reason why these communities didn’t react against the CAA earlier. But this is changing now,” Kamble said. According to Kamble, if NRC is carried out on the basis of DNA, Brahmins will be the first ones to be identified as outsiders.Kamble and his organisation have been organising a number of joint protests with Muslims groups against the CAA. Organisations like Bharatiya Bhatke Vimukta Youth Front, representing nomadic tribes, are particularly worried about the potential NRC and the NPR. They point out that most people from nomadic tribes don’t have documents such as proof of residence and will be the worst affected by an NRC-like exercise. Punjab: In Punjab, the protests against the CAA are being led mainly by farmers’ groups, Sikh organisations, Dalit outfits and students. Punjab witnessed its largest anti-CAA protest at the Anaj Mandi in Malerkotla in Sangrur district on 15 February, with Muslim organisations and locals joining hands with farmers’ groups such as Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugrahan) and Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union and Left students’ groups like Punjab Students’ Union – Lalkaar. Professor Jagmohan Singh, nephew of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, also addressed the rally. Protest by Punjab Students’ Union – Lalkaar in Malerkotla, Punjab   On the same day, a large protest march was organised by Dalit organisations under the banner of the Bharat Bachao Dalit Manch. Beginning from the Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall, the protesters planned to march till the city’s RSS headquarters but were stopped on the way. But they succeeded in bringing the area to a standstill for about three hours. Panthic organisations like Dal Khalsa and Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) have also held protests against CAA and NRC. A key development was the Akal Takht jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh meeting Muslim representatives and expressing support for the anti-CAA stir.“There’s an atmosphere of insecurity among minorities. Sikhs are bound to stand by the oppressed,” he said. Madhya :PradeshIn Madhya Pradesh, besides Muslims, the battle against CAA and NRC is being led by Adivasi and Dalit groups. The first major protest by Adivasi and Dalit groups was organised in Barwani in the end of January.Protests also took place at Khargone and Burhanpur. The joint demand by Muslim, Adivasi and Dalit groups compelled the Madhya Pradesh government to adopt a motion against the CAA.Tamil Nadu: In Tamil Nadu, the protests against CAA appear to have the active backing of the DMK and the MDMK. The brutal police action against protesters in Chennai also expanded support for the anti-CAA movement in Tamil Nadu, with several Opposition parties and individual citizens expressing their solidarity. There was a huge turnout at the DMK rally against CAA  DMK President MK Stalin also initiated a signature campaign against CAA, which reportedly received over 2 crore signatures. West Bengal:  In West Bengal, the battle against CAA and NRC is not seen as an exclusively Muslim issue, with several activists, artists and the ruling Trinamool Congress also joining the stir. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has herself led protests in several parts of the state since the passage of the CAA.The NRC process in Assam, which affected several Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims, has created fear among some Hindus in West Bengal as well. And the protesters as well as the TMC have partially succeeded in sending the message that this isn’t a Hindu-Muslim issue.There is also a narrative that BJP’s Hindutva project goes against West Bengal’s ‘syncretic’ culture and there are attempts to counter it from a Bengali Hindu perspective.A poster at the anti-CAA protest in Park Circus Kolkata shows Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna Paramhans opposing Modi on CAA  This has pushed elements within BJP on the back-foot as well, with leaders like Chandra Kumar Bose adopting a more conciliatory line regarding the CAA. Why Have Protests Expanded?There are several reasons why the involvement of non-Muslims in the anti-CAA protests is slowly increasing.First, the protests by Muslims themselves have expanded manifold from the time the agitation initially started. In Maharashtra for example, there are protests in almost every town with a sizable Muslim population. This has enabled non-Muslims who are aggrieved with Hindutva forces or the central government, Dalits and farmers for example, to join the protests out of a sense of common disaffection.Second, Muslim women being at the forefront of the protests has helped broaden the appeal of the anti-CAA agitation.Third, in states like Punjab, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the protests are also invoking a shared syncretic culture, standing against the Hindi-Hindutva hegemony. In Maharashtra, the dominant narrative of the protests is rooted in the ideals of Jotiba Phule and BR Ambedkar and the need to resist Brahminical hegemony.Fourth, the vocabulary of the Constitution and the constant invocation of the freedom struggle and icons like BR Ambedkar have also provided a platform for including diverse forces under the protests. Fifth, it is perhaps no coincidence that non-Muslims have joined the protests at a far greater scale in non-BJP ruled states. This could be because the threat of state repression as well as right-wing propaganda against the protests are less in these states. There are exceptions, of course, such as the Sikh farmers from Punjab who came to Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh in large numbers despite the threat of violence by Delhi Police or of attacks by right-wing goons.The broadening of the base of the protests could have harmful consequences for the government as it appears that the propaganda that the anti-CAA stir is “Islamist” or “anti-national” isn’t quite cutting it. https://www.thequint.com/news/politics/shaheen-bagh-protest-muslims-sikhs-dalits-mumbai-bengal-chennai

31.                        Journalists under attack: Feb., 22, 2020: “Jihadi.” “Presstitute.”Those are some of the insults the government of India routinely deploys against critical journalists. I’ve been at the receiving end of both. A few weeks ago, the Twitter account of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party called me a “jihadi” for my criticism of its polarizing tweets against Muslims in India. But I’m far from alone. Journalists are facing enormous pressures and intimidation in India. President Trump, who is visiting the country next week, will surely feel right at home with a government that also dismisses critical news stories as fake and casts aspersions on journalistic integrity every day. Fabrication, hyper-nationalism and self-censorship are on the rise as the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi tightens its grip on the country’s political and economic life. High-profile journalists have been pushed aside for not toeing the line. As a result, many of India’s finest journalist and editors can’t find supportive newsrooms. One of the country’s most popular news anchors, Faye D’Souza, resigned under pressure after she aired an episode in August questioning the government’s decision to revoke the special status accorded to Kashmir, which led to a crackdown on local politicians, a total Internet blockade and a tight curfew. The channel pushed her out because it decided to stand with Modi’s Kashmir decision.This climate of intimidation is not new. In June 2017, the Central Bureau of Investigation raided the residence of Prannoy Roy, the proprietor of one of India’s oldest and most credible news networks, NDTV. In his response, Roy said “they are trying to tell us that we can suppress you even if we haven’t done anything wrong." Then he added: "It is a signal to the entire free press of India.” But the tactics have become more brazen and are not even restricted to journalists based in India. After the New York-based writer Aatish Taseer wrote a cover story for Time critical of Modi,Taseer found his Overseas Citizen of India card revoked, which will now make it difficult for him to visit his home country. The attacks and intimidation help clear the way for what award-winning journalist Ravish Kumar has termed the lapdog media, or “godi media.” It’s this partisan media that has been tasked with dehumanizing and demonizing students — who are protesting India’s discriminatory policies, including its controversial citizenship laws — minorities and activists, who are routinely labeled as anti-nationals on prime-time shows.When you have a “lapdog media,” the prime minister doesn’t have to answer tough questions: Modi has yet to hold a news conference since he took office, but he has sat down for scripted interviews with selected news anchors. These pliable anchors also generously amplify fake-news videos generated and circulated by the ruling party’s social media and then refuse to course-correct despite being called out by fact-checkers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/21/journalism-is-under-attack-india-so-is-truth/

32.                        Woman detained: Feb.,23, 2020: A young woman was detained and booked on Friday for holding a “Kashmir Mukti (liberation), Dalit Mukti, Muslim Mukti” placard at a protest in the city, police said. The woman, identified as Arudra Narayanan is said to be a resident of Malleswaram in west Bengaluru and a student of a private college  The “Kashmir Mukti, Dalit Mukti, Muslim Mukti” slogans were written in both Kannada and English in the placard held by her  After being removed from the stage, Amulya was later arrested on charges of sedition and produced before a magistrate court which remanded her to 14 days judicial custody.  https://kashmirobserver.net/2020/02/21/bengaluru-student-booked-for-flashing-free-kashmir-placard/

33.                        Violence : Feb., 25, 2020:  48 hours after a local leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party threatened violence against those opposing the CAA in northeast Delhi, a police constable and one civilian (and possibly two others) were killed as government supporters who took to the streets clashed with anti-CAA protesters and the police. By evening, a tyre market in Gokalpuri was burning, with leaping flames lighting up the sky – hardly the sort of visuals the Modi government would like to showcase to US President Donald Trump, who landed in Delhi from Agra as part of his 36-hour tour of India. The Delhi police said in the evening that a head constable had died in the violence which engulfed Maujpur. The constable, Ratan Lal, was deployed in Gokalpuri, the area where violence was reported. Lal was reportedly hit on the head with stones and taken to a hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries. The violence that engulfed the capital has also claimed the life of Mohammad Furqan, a civilian, reports have confirmed.Deputy Commissioner of Police, Shahdara, Amit Sharma was also reported as having suffered injuries to his head and hand. He was hospitalised and out of danger, PTI reported. Section 144 has been imposed at 10 locations in North East Delhi  The violence continued for the second day after BJP leader Kapil Mishra on Sunday gave an ‘ultimatum’ to the Delhi police to clear protest sites within three days. On Monday, after the policeman’s death, Mishra – who had given an open call for violence – tweeted that “violence is not the way to reach a resolution”.  The Delhi government has announced that all government and private schools will be closed in North East district on Tuesday. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has also urged Union human resource development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal to postpone board examinations in the area scheduled for Tuesday.  Some female protesters said they were “touched inappropriately” by male police officers Meanwhile, the Delhi Police said permission had not been granted for the march. “The protesters tried to block traffic at multiple locations and also in front of arterial roads in front of the hospital,” said Atul Kumar, DCP (south) said  https://thewire.in/rights/delhi-caa-clashes-kapil-mishra-jaffrabad

34.                        Violence in Delhi: Feb., 26, 2020: A mosque has been set on fire in the Indian capital New Delhi as violent protests continue across the city with the death toll rising to 13. Indian website The Wire reported that a mob shouting "Jai Shri Ram", translated to "hail Lord Ram", paraded around the burning mosque in the Ashok Nagar area of the capital on Tuesday.  Video footage shared on social media showed a mob climbing to the top of the mosque's minaret where they attempted to plant a saffron flag. Local media reported that shops in the area were also being targeted by the mob 13 people have died in the violence, including a policeman who passed away yesterday. Another official at the hospital, Rajesh Kalra, told AFP news agency that 31 people, including 10 who were seriously hurt, were admitted earlier on Tuesday.  Anil Mittal, a senior police officer, said approximately 150 people were injured in the violence that started as US President Donald Trump arrived on a two-day India trip."Some of the people brought in had gunshot wounds," Rajesh Kalra, additional medical superintendent at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, said of Monday's violence.  Two of my colleague’s @arvindgunasekar and @saurabhshukla_s were badly beaten by a mob just now in Delhi, they only stopped beating them after realizing they are “our people- Hindus”. Absolutely  despicable. The violence started a day after the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kapil Mishra warned anti-CAA protesters to end their peaceful sit-ins in the northeastern Jafrabad and Maujpur areas of the Indian capital. A tyre market was set on fire later on Monday, the Press Trust of India said. A video posted on social media showed crowds of men also shouting "Jai Shree Ram" as they went on a rampage, according to AFP .Several vehicles and a fire truck were torched in Jafrabad and Maujpur as police imposed prohibitory orders to prevent further violence.  Tension in parts of the city remained high on Tuesday with schools remaining shut in some areas, amid news reports of fresh clashes. At least five metro stations in the city were closed.Several journalists covering the violence were also attacked by angry mobs at several places. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/death-toll-rises-violence-continues-day-delhi-200225054836893.html

35.                        Delhi ablaze: Feb., 26, 2020: At the Maujpur-Babarpur chowk, Hindutva supporters gathered around BJP leader Jai Bhagwan Goyal, who had led a rally of a 100-odd people minutes before he broke into a rant against Muslims.“Agar yahan rahna hai, toh khada hona hoga (‘If you want to stay here, then you will have to rise up’)” the 60-year-old saffron clad leader declared, even as his voice faded amidst chants of “Jai Shri Ram” and “Har Har Mahadev.” “Chaaron taraf se Muslims se gheere huye hai. Agar apne aap ko bachana hai toh ladna hoga (‘We are surrounded by Muslims from all four sides, if we want to defend ourselves we will have to fight’),” said one of his supporters, even as  Goyal kept inciting the Hindu men who had gathered there against Muslims. Several parts of north east Delhi have witnessed large-scale communal riots since Monday. On Tuesday, the mixed localities of the region stand entirely polarised on religious lines. The panic call that Goyal and his supporters gave could leave any observer perplexed. The stretch between Jaffrabad and Maujpur metro stations – in effect the epicentre of the communal riots – is less than a kilometre but represents a religious polarisation hitherto unseen in the national capital. 

36.                        The area near the Jaffrabad metro station has a strong Muslim presence. But, on Tuesday, the Muslim protesters remained largely muted. “Our intention is to protest against CAA. We have no intention to fight our Hindu brothers and sisters,” a protestor at Jaffrabad told The Wire. When asked whether the situation escalated into a riot only because of Hindutva participants, he said, “I won’t lie. Yesterday, when the Hindu mob started pelting stones, some young men from our side too picked up the very same stones and bricks and threw them at the mob. We couldn’t control the situation. But today, we are clear that no one will be encouraged to indulge in any form of violence.”Even as a few policemen kept guard, the protesters kept chanting slogans against CAA. Multiple speakers called on people to refrain from any form of violence. In contrast, the area around Maujpur station has been entirely taken over by a frenzied Hindutva mob.One is greeted by a large hoarding of saffron drapes that reads “Jai Shri Ram”. Young men, with sticks, tubelights, or plain PVC pipes, openly flaunted their strength in front of a small battalion of Delhi Police personnel stationed there. The police stood as mute spectators even as an anarchic mob swelled. They looked at journalists with suspicion. Each time anyone attempted to take a video or a picture, they would snatch her or his phone, make them delete all photos, and threaten to beat them up. The police kept requesting the journalists to keep a distance from the mob which was merely 20 metres away but refused to answer why the mob was allowed to congregate despite Section 144 in place  In small intervals, the temperature soared as various mobs spread over different parts of the area burst into slogans of “Jai Shri Ram” – visibly the most-used war cry against Muslims. The use of invectives, particularly those clearly intended to be anti-Muslim, pervaded the air, along with the tear gas that the small troupe of police occasionally fired to disperse the mob  As a mob took over, going beyond Maujpur metro station became impossible but incidents of rioting were being constantly reported to the police. One could hear tear gas shells being fired or see long clouds of smoke from a distant corner from a distance. Even as most shops and businesses in north east Delhi remained shut on Tuesday, the stretch between the Jaffrabad and Maujpur metro stations was a stark reminder of what conspired on Monday. Many shops owned by Muslims in the Jaffrabad area had been set ablaze. The streets were strewn with stones, bricks, and glass  The Hindutva leaders swung into action soon after, with Kapil Mishra, the BJP leader who lost the assembly election recently, threatening the Delhi police and the government that his supporters would not hesitate to violently clear any anti-CAA protests that have blocked off the roads. https://thewire.in/communalism/delhi-riots-jai-shri-ram-hindutva-bjp

37.                        US reaction: Feb., 26, 2020: The violence over the amended citizenship act in India's capital New Delhi drew sharp reactions from US lawmakers with the mainstream media prominently reporting it along with the just-concluded visit of President Donald Trump .Reacting to the violence that has claimed at least 20 lives in the past a couple of days, US Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said the "deadly surge of religious intolerance in India is horrifying". "Democracies should not tolerate division and discrimination or promote laws that undermine religious freedom," she said in a tweet, adding that the "world is watching". Congressman Alan Lowenthal too termed the violence a "tragic failure of moral leadership". "We must speak out in the face of threats to human rights in India," he said. Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth Warren also a swipe at the violence, saying, "It's important to strengthen relationships with democratic partners like India. But we must be able to speak truthfully about our values, including religious freedom and freedom of expression, and violence against peaceful protesters is never acceptable." Congresswoman Rashida Talib tweeted, "This week, Trump visited India but the real story should be the communal violence targeting Muslims in Delhi right now. We cannot be silent as this tide of anti-Muslim violence continues across India." The violence in Delhi prominently featured in the mainstream media. The Washington Post reported, "The riots represent a serious escalation of tensions after months of protests in response to a controversial citizenship law and growing frictions between supporters and opponents of the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi." "As President Trump toured India's capital, at least 11 people were killed in communal clashes that have upended a working-class neighbourhood," The New York Times said. In a tweet, US Commission for International Religious Freedom said it is alarmed by reports of "deadly mob violence targeting Muslims in New Delhi". It urged the Modi government to rein in the mob and protect religious minorities. https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2020/feb/26/deadly-surge-of-religious-intolerance-in-india-is-horrifying-pramila-jayapal-on-delhi-riots-2108736.html

38.                        Delhi violence: Feb., 26, 2020: On Monday, one police constable and four civilians were killed as reports of arson, gunfire and stone-pelting violence came in from the North East Delhi area. Videos also showed the Delhi police standing by as mobs pelted stones. By the time The Wire‘s reporters caught up with what had happened,  eyewitnesses on the ground had begun to refer to the areas where violence had occurred as ‘the war zone’.The way the conflict has been laid out is linear – the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act and predominantly Muslim protestors begin at Jaffrabad, with a police cordon shortly after. Beyond the site is what has now become no-man’s land. For nearly six weeks, protestors thronged to a makeshift protest site at one end and there were no reports of any major violence. Today, the tarmac is filled with broken bricks and lost slippers. Beyond lies what has now become a bastion of the Hindutva groups, who have mobilised hundreds of young men and occupied the chowk beneath the Maujpur-Babarpur station. At Jaffrabad, the protestors were sitting peacefully still, slightly shaken, at the protest space where they have been for the past 40-odd days without incident. Monday’s violence  has taken the lives of five people, including one police officer. The violence began earlier in the morning, with a group of policemen, according to eyewitnesses, allegedly accompanied by a right-wing group, beating peaceful anti-CAA protesters at Chand Bagh, with the violence steadily making its way across North-East Delhi. Adib*, a witness to what had happened in the day, said, “We are seeing everything being laid waste. Our businesses are being ruined, we’ve been protesting for over a month, and if we are wrong, come and speak to us! What wrong did we do, if you have a problem with what we’re doing, why didn’t they come and speak to us and make us understand? Why are they saying that we are insane and we’re miscreants – if the government has so many intelligent people here, why are they not able to explain to us? Instead they’re sending groups from the RSS, from the Bajrang Dal, and they’re coming and throwing stones and shooting at us.” Asif*, a middle aged man with a grey beard, says, “[BJP leader] Kapil Mishra is responsible for this. He has caused such a riot here that he has caused harm to both the government’s property as well as the public’s property.  In UP, Yogi Adityanath’s government has taken money from individuals for causing property damage. Will Arvind Kejriwal take action against Kapil Mishra and make him pay for the damage that has been done?” The Muslims we spoke to at Jaffrabad were emotional but refrained from making any communal comments against Hindus. “A policeman died, and he too is ours,” Asif said. “He was a father and a son, and our hearts hurt for his death. For the wounded police, we hurt for them. The Hindus are also our brothers. If anyone lifts a hand to them, they will have to step over us first. We will be responsible for them. Our Hindu brothers are passing through here and we are making sure that they are given full protection and safe passage.” Adib says, “They are saying that Muslims have done all this. A mazar has been burnt. I ask you, why would a Muslim burn his own house? We have not put one step forward. All we are asking for is our rights. We did not want riots and we do not want them, but we are standing for justice. but you can bring lathis and dandas, you can call goons and the RSS, you can come yourself and you can bring your father also, but we will stand here.” The police made a light cordon of ropes at the final Muslim protest area. The protesters sat quietly, with some movement in and out, but no slogans were being shouted. The road was clear. Past the cordon was no man’s land, where the only people present were random bystanders and a long, silent line of police. We pass a man on a bicycle cart, a Hindu, being accompanied by a Muslim man. “He was scared,” the Muslim man says. “We’re going with him so he has nothing to worry about.” As we came closer to the area where the Hindutva groups have mobilised people, the atmosphere changes. We could hear loud cries and sloganeering taking place, and the people on the streets are now looking at us with a certain suspicion. We took a detour through an inner lane so as to avoid a direct confrontation, with a fellow journalist letting us know that he had tried three times to enter there, but because of his evidently large camera, he had been thrown out. Given that the anti-media sentiment was high, we did not take any video or photographic footage for fear of reprisals on discovery. Maujpur had seen some of the worst violence of the day, with a video of a man firing a gun directly past a policeman going viral earlier in the day. When we came into the area commandeered by the Hindutva group, the most notable thing was the aura of festivity. A large group of people was shouting slogans, including the now notorious ‘goli maaro saalon ko’, while groups of people distributed biscuits. A man was carrying around a large tray filled with plates of upma, which he was giving the policemen standing by, a significant number of whom were happily partaking of the food. A large number of people on this side were carrying weapons of one kind or another – sticks of thick bamboo, hockey sticks, cricket wickets, steel rods commonly found in construction sites, curtain rods. One enterprising individual carried a collapsible metal baton. Many had the bright orange tika across their foreheads, and waved saffron flags. There was very little conversation actually taking place about the CAA or the National Register of Citizens, and it would be inaccurate to refer to the crowds here as pro-CAA protestors given that their main aim seemed to be pro-Hindutva sentiment. Across a wall, ‘F*&^ u Islam’ was spray painted in bright colours, in contrast to the ‘other side’, which has variants on the anti-CAA theme. We were being carefully watched, given that we were clearly not locals from the area. I peeled off a sticker from my phone which revealed what organisation I worked for, and on trying to take a video of a woman shouting the goli-maaro slogan, was immediately stopped by a man with a stick. “Did you just peel a sticker off your phone,” he said, as I hurriedly pushed my phone back into my bag. “Yes,” I said. “I put it on this morning.” When I turned back, the woman who was sloganeering, looked at me directly and loudly began the ‘Jai Shri Ram’ cry. I joined in. The man watching me backed off. Where the Jaffrabad side of the protest was calm, if upset, the Hindutva side was raucous and celebratory. A small dance party had been set up, with lights and all. A speaker bellowed music that was made famous by kanwariyas: Hate-Music setting communal sentiments to a thumping bass. Jai Shri Ram echoed frequently, along with the phrase Hinduon ka Hindustan. We passed a boy, barely out of his teens sporting a head injury, and asked what had happened. An excitable friend of his joined in to say that he had been hit by a brick thrown by the other side. The boy himself looked sheepish and proud, and on being asked to sit down, laughed it off and said that this was child’s play. The group paused and watched another group walk by, and the friend enviously pointed out that three men in that group were carrying pistols. (This was unverified by us.) Every person in that group was carrying a hitting implement, and most people on the streets were also carrying sticks. A child who did not look older than four passed by, his mother holding his younger sister and his father holding his hand. In his other hand, he had a stick the same size as he was https://thewire.in/communalism/ground-report-war-zone-in-north-east-delhi.

39.                        Violence continues in Delhi: Feb., 27,2020: Protests against a contentious citizenship law began on a smaller scale on Sunday but escalated on Monday and Tuesday into running battles between Hindus and Muslims in New Delhi’s north-east, where rioters armed with stones, swords and even guns were out in force  Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court heard a plea on the communal violence and said it cannot let "another 1984" happen on its "watch", reported BBC. In 1984, more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed in anti-Sikh riots in the city, the publication added. The court also ordered security for the capital's citizens, Scroll.in reported. Meanwhile, the capital's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the army should be called in and a    According to India Today, curfew was imposed in four areas of North East Delhi — Maujpur, Jaffrabad, Chand Bagh and Karawal Nagar. Hindustan Times reported that fresh rounds of violence erupted in two localities of East Delhi on Wednesday morning. 20 people died and nearly 200 others were wounded in the first two days of violence, the director of the hospital where people were taken, told AFP on Wednesday. Sixty people had suffered gunshot wounds, according to the director Sunil Kumar. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres is closely following the situation in New Delhi, First Post reported. His spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the UN chief had stressed that demonstrators should be allowed to demonstrate peacefully and security forces should show restraint."I think it's very important that demonstrators be allowed to demonstrate peacefully and that security forces show restraint. This is the SG's constant position," he said, adding that they were "obviously" following the situation closely. Reuters witnesses saw mobs wielding sticks, pipes and stones walking down streets in parts of northeast Delhi on Tuesday, amid incidents of arson, looting and stone-throwing. National Home Minister Amit Shah, whose ministry controls law and order in the capital region, met with senior Delhi government officials and promised to deploy more police if they were needed, Kejriwal said.  Broadcaster NDTV said three of its reporters and a cameraman were attacked by a mob on the northeastern fringe of the city of 20 million people. “There is hardly any police presence in the area. Rioters are running around threatening people, vandalising shops,” a resident of the poor, migrant neighbourhood of Maujpur told PTI. “People are killing (each other). Bullets are being fired here,” a tailor in Jaffrabad told AFP, adding that he was returning home to his village in northern Uttar Pradesh state.“There is no work [...] It is better to leave than to stick around here. Why would we want to die here?”  The new citizenship law has raised worries abroad — including in Washington — that Modi wants to remould secular India into a Hindu nation while marginalising the country's 200 million Muslims Global rights group Amnesty International tweeted that "political leaders in India who are fuelling hatred and creating a violent environment by making hate speeches must be immediately held accountable". Eight people have been killed and more than 100 injured in the riots that broke out in the north-eastern part of New Delhi. Political leaders in  India who are fueling hatred and creating a violent environment by making hate speeches must be immediately held accountable. https://www.dawn.com/news/1536723/death-toll-from-delhi-communal-violence-rises-to-23-high-court-orders-security-for-citizens

40.                        Willful neglect: Feb., 27, 2020: For three days, northeast Delhi has been in the grip of armed vigilantes mobilised by Hindutva politicians to attack and terrorise those protesting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Given the nature of the mobs and their leaders, the violence quickly lost any pretence of a ‘political’ motive and descended into crude, generalised communal violence against Muslims. The utter chaos and lawlessness which reigned unchecked on the watch of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre – which controls law and order in the national capital – has left at least 21 people dead, including a policeman, and several hundred injured. Ordinary working people – both Hindus and Muslims – have died in the orchestrated mayhem. There can be no doubt that the ultimatum issued by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kapil Mishra on Sunday for the anti-CAA protestors to clear the streets of northeast Delhi or face dire consequences was the immediate trigger to the violence. But there are also deeper underlying factors – institutional and political – which helped push Delhi into the abyss. The first and most obvious factor is the partisanship of the Delhi Police, encouraged and sustained in large part by the support of the ruling BJP at the Centre. From university campuses to the streets, it is now a matter of habit for the Delhi Police to stand by and watch mobs whose political agenda squares with the BJP run amok. Ordinary citizens, particularly Muslims – the primary targets of the ruling party’s polarising politics around the question of citizenship – can expect no succour from such partisan law enforcers. As in other recent episodes of violence in Delhi, here too, instead of protecting the vulnerable, the police could be seen backing the Hindutva mobs in their attacks Muslims. The fact that the Delhi high court’s intervention was needed before the police agreed to ferry victims of the violence to safety tells its own appalling story. The continued dereliction of duty without fear of punitive action has created a situation that is alarming for any civilised nation. The images flooding television screens for the past few nights, along with reports by journalists from numerous organisations who had all been subject to the mob’s vicious attacks, brought back stark memories of 1984 – the last time Delhi was in the throes of such organised communal violence – or 2002, when the state of Gujarat under Narendra Modi burned for weeks. Second, the role of BJP and Sangh parivar leaders throughout this period has been reprehensible. Apart from Kapil Mishra, party legislators and functionaries have either openly inciting anti-Muslim hatred or helped demonise the anti-CAA protests – which have all been peaceful – as anti-national. While Union home minister Amit Shah has been missing in action, the junior home minister has now set his sights on the media – demanding action against news platforms whose reports of the violence have proved embarrassing for the government. Regrettably, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which won a landslide against the BJP in Delhi’s assembly polls last month, has also miserably failed to rise to the occasion. Granted, law and order is not in the state government’s hands. But rather than mark their presence in the embattled parts of the city, AAP leaders appeared to vanish from the scene. It would have been befitting of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to send out his legislators to the strife-torn areas where people were desperately seeking help. The image of the chief minister alongside his deputy, Manish Sisodia, paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat added further insult to injury. Rather than take a proactive stance, the AAP chose to retreat into the shadows while Delhi was burning. To be sure, AAP’s retreat pales in significance before the direct culpability of the BJP. Nobody should be under any illusion that the Delhi communal riots of 2020 are not a product of deliberate, attempts to polarise the country on religious grounds. The party leadership and its governments at the Centre and in states like Uttar Pradesh have, directly and indirectly, stoked hatred against Muslims. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who hosted US President Donald Trump while Delhi burned, finally tweeted a tepid appeal for “peace and harmony” on Wednesday. Given Delhi’s history, and his own, Modi’s silence for three days tells its own story. https://thewire.in/communalism/editorial-1984-2002-2020

41.                        US Concern: Feb., 28, 2020: As the death toll in ongoing communal riots in India’s capital has risen to 34, the US point person for South Asia, Alice Wells has urged the Delhi rioters to “maintain peace and refrain from violence”. Sonia Gandhi, president of the opposition Congress party, called for the resignation of Home Minister Amit Shah, who is directly responsible for law and order in Delhi. The violence erupted between thousands demonstrators for and against the new legislation passed by the Modi’s Hindu nationalist government... Critics say it is further proof that Modi, emboldened by a resounding election victory this year, is moving quickly to reshape India as a Hindu nation and weaken its secular foundations. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2165515/1-us-diplomat-urges-delhi-rioters-refrain-violence/

42.                        Delhi violence continues: Feb., 28,2020: Sporadic violence hit parts of Delhi overnight as gangs roamed streets littered with the debris of days of sectarian riots that have killed 34 people, police said on Thursday. Thousands of riot police and paramilitaries patrolled the affected northeast fringes of the Indian capital of 20 million people, preventing any major eruptions.  Sunil Kumar, director of the Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital, said Thursday the hospital registered 30 deaths while the chief doctor at Lok Nayak Hospital said that two people had died there. “All of them (at the GTB) had gunshot injuries,” Kumar told AFP. Homes, shops, two mosques, two schools, a tyre market and a fuel station were torched. More than 200 people were also injured. ,” he said. Mobs armed with swords and guns set fire to thousands of properties and vehicles. Locals complained that police did nothing to stop the violence  In December at least 30 people were killed, mostly in police action in northern Uttar Pradesh state, a part of the country with a significant Muslim population. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2165302/3-sporadic-violence-delhi-death-toll-hits-32/

43.                        BJP tactics: Feb., 28, 2020: The streets of Mustafabad bore a deserted look on Wednesday. Paramilitary troops and Delhi police personnel aggressively pushed onlookers back to their homes, even as a cloud of gloom pervaded the locality. It was clearly a curfew-like situation; shops were shut, most of them had anyway been burnt, people were worried about their food stock getting over. That tension was palpable would only be an understatement. Hindus and Muslims, who have stayed together in harmony for years, have suddenly become extremely fearful of each other. https://thewire.in/communalism/mustafabad-delhi-riots-ground-report . THIS IS WHAT WAS AIMED AT: TO MOVE THE POLITICAL DIALOGUE TO THE EXTREME RIGH;  TO PORTARY MUSLIMS AS UNRELIABLE AND UNPATROTIC.

44.                        OIC: Feb., 28, 2020: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) condemns the recent and alarming violence against Muslims in India, resulting in the death and injury of innocent people and the arson and vandalism of mosques and Muslim-owned properties. It expresses its sincere condolences to the families of the victims of these heinous acts. The OIC calls on Indian authorities to bring the instigators and perpetrators of these acts of anti-Muslim violence to justice and to ensure the safety and security of all its Muslim citizens and the protection of Islamic holy places across the country. https://www.oic-oci.org/topic/?t_id=23240&t_ref=13947&lan=en

45.                        UNHCR: Feb., 28, 2020: In its update to the Human Rights Council on rights concerns and its progress across the world, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights highlighted both Kashmir and the Citizenship Amendment Act. The latter and the violence into which the capital city has descended as a result of it was described as a cause for “great concern.” In her address to the Human Rights Council, in its 43rd Session, High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet spoke on the prevailing situations in countries across the world. Her mention of India began with the detention of political leaders in Jammu and Kashmir.  The UN has taken cognisance of the Indian government’s excesses in the region a few times before and since the reading down of Article 370, on October 29, the spokesperson for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville acknowledged that an “undeclared curfew” had been lifted from much of Jammu and Ladakh regions within a few days. Bachelet had expressed concerns about restrictions imposed on Kashmir in her inaugural speech at the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as well, in September 2019. After Article 370 of the constitution was read down in August, five UN-appointed independent human rights experts had described the communication clampdown and security restrictions as a “collective punishment” for the population. This time, the OHCHR’s focus remained on the treatment of political leaders, activists, the closure of schools, the partial restoration of mobile and internet services, the restrictions on social media and the often excessive use of forces. https://thewire.in/rights/caa-kashmir-violence-unhcr

46.                        Bernie Sanders: Feb., 28, 2020:  Over 200 million Muslims call India home. Widespread anti-Muslim mob violence has killed at least 27 and injured many more. Trump responds by saying, "That's up to India." This is a failure of leadership on human rights.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/toll-rises-to-22-in-delhi-violence-as-modi-issues-plea-for-calm/2020/02/26/2cb8e0d8-589f-11ea-8efd-0f904bdd8057_story.html…

47.                         US : Feb., 28, 2020: A US federal government commission noted on Thursday that efforts were being made in India to disenfranchise Muslims while the government was failing in its duty to protect citizens. Similar sentiments have also been expressed by other US government bodies, members of Congress, think-tanks and the media.`The brutal and unchecked violence growing across Delhi cannot continue,` said Anurima Bhargava, head of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), while reminding the Indian government that it `must take swift action` to ensure the safety of all of its citizens. `Instead, reports are mounting that the Delhi police have not intervened in violent attacks against Muslims, and the government is failing in its duty to protect its citizens,` she added. These incidents are even more concerning in the context of efforts within India to target and potentially disenfranchise Muslims across the country, in clear violation of international human rights standards.`

48.                        Houston protests: Mar., 3, 2030: A large number of demonstrators, including Pakistani and Indian Muslims, gathered outside the office of Consulate General of India on Monday to stage their protest against brutalities of Modi-led regime against minority Muslims in New Delhi as India’s capital  burns with communal riots over a controversial citizenship law. Nyanza Moore, a Democratic candidate for the US Congress, also stood in support with Muslims, lamenting, “We are also the oppressed blacks in the world’s largest democratic country — the United States”. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2168110/1-americans-protest-delhi-communal-riots-outside-indian-consulate-houston/

49.                        Delhi violence: Mar., 1, 2020:  By now the facts are almost clear. The violence was  instigated by BJP leaders, their video, messages are available. Terrorists from outside Delhi were transported, fully armed, in Trucks. The Delhi police allowed these armed goons to enter the nations Capital even when a foreign dignitary was around. The Delhi police watched from the side lines as this violence unfolded, they at best abetted this and in some cases watched the incidents happen. Delhi police is controlled by the Federal government, Amit Shah is the Minister to whom they answer to. BJP strategy is to drive the political dialogue to the far right and portrays Muslims as unreliable and unpatriotic.  . This violence was carried out by BJP/RSS and the orders cane from the very top.

50.                        Iran: Mar., 3, 2020: Iran has condemned the Delhi riots, terming them as “organised violence against Indian Muslims”, and has called upon the Indian government to “not let senseless thuggery prevail” Iran is the first country to directly use the word ‘condemn’ for the riots that are the worst Delhi has seen in decades .. https://thewire.in/diplomacy/delhi-riots-iran-foreign-minister

51.                         Muslim concerns: Mar, 3, 3030: The World came very hard, rightly so, in so called Islamic terrorism. This is now by any definition Right wing Hindu terrorism. Here is what Muslims need to see happening:

1.     RSS , VHP  and Sangh Parivar need to be declared terrorist organizations and the key personal prosecuted as criminals by World bodies.

2.     BJP role in this and other affairs need to be investigated by an outside agency and if found complicit should be declared as a terrorist organization.

3.     EU had deferred their resolution on Kashmir and CAA, they should move this fast forward.

4.     Europe, US and UK should issue condemnation by their legislators.

5.     US and EU should reevaluate their economic ties with India.

6.      OIC should take this incident to UNHRC , Even private people can do so ( If anyone needs help  I will be happy to provide it  )

7.      Organizations that contribute   to FDI to India should reevaluate their funding decisions.  

8.     Saudis and GCC should reevaluate their investment commitments to India and should reevaluate their stand on Kashmir.

Muslims seek actions and in the near future.

52.                         

Managed violence: Mar., 1, 2020: On Sunday evening, Om Veer, a resident of north-east Delhi’s Bhajanpura was sitting outside his shop on Pushta Road when he saw around 10 trucks being parked on the service lane carrying around 70 men with backpacks. All the men were in the 20 to 30 age-group, and they were all outsiders, Veer said.Just 20 minutes later, another truck followed, carrying construction debris and pieces of bricks. Though Veer could not draw a connection between the two immediately, he began getting suspicious when he woke up to the news of violent communal clashes and stone-pelting across north-east Delhi the next morning.“These people were not locals. They did not look like labourers. All were young men. Who knows what they were carrying in their backpacks? It could be stones, it could be weapons,” Veer said. several residents claim that unruly elements continue to enter areas around Seemapuri, Bhajanpura, Maujpur and Jafrabad using smaller routes. Though three primary entry points -- Laal Bagh, DLF embankment road in Loni, and Tulsi Niketan border in Sahibabad -- are now protected by the police from both sides, there are several internal roads from where cars and two-wheelers can access the Capital..Even on Friday, residents in Seemapuri claimed that they had seen outsiders being brought into Delhi to insight fresh communal clashes that have already claimed 42 lives. Mohammad Irfan, a resident of Seemapuri, said that he was guarding his colony gates with his neighbours around 2am on Friday when he saw three vehicles, with Haryana registration numbers, come their way. His colony is less than 2km away from UP’s Shaheed Nagar, and the route is not secured by any security agency. “We could not see how many people there were in these vehicles, but when the residents surrounded them, they quickly turned their vehicles and went away,” said Irfan. Thirty two-year-old Neelam Mishra, a resident of Zero Pushta, also bore witness to over a dozen motorcycles zoom through her neighbourhood late Tuesday night. He said that the Hindus and Muslims have lived in this neighbourhood peacefully for generations and any political interference cannot instigate neighbours against each other. These riots were orchestrated and these people were brought from outside ” Mishra said.  .  . https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/men-came-in-trucks-carrying-bricks-and-bags-allege-locals/story-69tXeI4LlMU2x308C2shyI.html

48

US : Feb., 28, 2020: A US federal government commission noted on Thursday that efforts were being made in India to disenfranchise Muslims while the government was failing inits duty to protectcitizens. Similar sentiments have also been expressed by other US government bodies, members of Congress, think-tanks and the media.`The brutal and unchecked violence growing across Delhi cannot continue,` said Anurima Bhargava, head of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), while reminding the Indian government that it `must take swift action` to ensure the safety of all of its citizens. `Instead, reports are mounting that the Delhi police have not intervened in violent attacks against Muslims, and the government is failing in its duty to protect its citizens,` she added.`These incidents are even more concerning in the context of efforts within India to target and potentially disenfranchise Muslims across the country, in clear violation of international human rights standards.` Deeply troubled by the deaths from the communal violence in India over the past couple of days,` said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel.  Senators Mark R. Warner and John Cornyn, co-chairs of the Senate India Caucus, said in a joint statement that they were `alarmed by the recent violence in New Delhi. They urged all sides to engage in `an open dialogue on issues of signincant concern in order to advance our vital long-term relationship. Richard Haass President, President Council on Foreign Relations, noted in a tweet: `One reason for India`s relative success has been that its large Muslim minority saw itself as Indian.`But this is at risk owing to govt attempts to exploit identity politics for political advantage. Truly short-sighted as both economically, socially costly,` he wrote. Deeply troubled by the deaths from the communal violence in India over the past couple of days,` said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel.  Senators Mark R. Warner and John Cornyn, co-chairs of the Senate India Caucus, said in a joint statement that they were `alarmed by the recent violence in New Delhi. They urged all sides to engage in `an open dialogue on issues of signincant concern in order to advance our vital long-term relationship. Richard Haass President, President Council on Foreign Relations, noted in a tweet: `One reason for India`s relative success has been that its large Muslim minority saw itself as Indian.`But this is at risk owing to govt attempts to exploit identity politics for political advantage. Truly short-sighted as both economically, socially costly,` he wrote. https://epaper.dawn.com/DetailImage.php?StoryImage=28_02_2020_012_001

 

Monthly update  5:  January 2020 : Muslims in India

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1.     India Detention centers: Jan., 3, 2020: Ali's brother-in-law failed to make it to the National Register of Citizens  , a list published in Assam this year which declared 1.9 million people as "illegal" migrants, who now face either detention in a camp like the one coming up at Goalpara, or deportation. Spread around nearly 300,000 square feet (28,000 square metres or 2.8 hectares) of land, the detention centre in Goalpara's Matia village, 126km (78 miles) from state capital Dispur, can house 3,000 people.  "Male and female inmates will be kept in separate areas divided by a six feet red-coloured wall. There will be 13 male blocks of four storeys each and two female blocks of the same size," Rabindra Das, an engineer with Assam's police housing board and incharge of the construction of the detention facility, told Al Jazeera. "The entire compound is surrounded by two walls, the inner being 20 feet high, followed by the outer wall six feet high," Das said. As a security measure, the detention centre has six watchtowers for round-the-clock monitoring, supported by a 100-metre high-beam light.  According to officials at the construction site, the centre was sanctioned by India's federal home ministry in June last year and was supposed to be completed by December. However, the deadline has now been pushed to April this year. "It is a central government project. We have to finish the entire construction by April," said Das. While the government has not yet announced a nationwide NRC, a number of detention centres are coming up across the country. In Assam, which has witnessed a movement against mainly Bangla-speaking migrants for more than four decades, at least six detention centres are already operational. On December 3, India's Minister of State for Home Affairs, G Kishan Reddy, in a written response, informed the Parliament that an existing detention centre in Goalpara has 201 inmates, Kokrajhar has 140, Silchar 71, Dibrugarh 40, Jorhat 196, and Tezpur centre holds 322 inmates.  In July, another Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai, said all the states have been asked to establish detention centres according to a Model Detention Centre Manual prepared by the government.  On December 22, the southern state of Karnataka opened a centre for undocumented migrants in Nelamangala, some 40km (27 miles) from the capital city of Bengaluru. The western state of Goa inaugurated its first detention centre on May 29 last year, while Rajasthan has a centre located inside a federal jail. Reports said a detention centre in the state of Punjab is expected to be completed by May this year. In the national capital of New Delhi, a detention centre has been operational since 2006 and is run by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO). In the western state of Maharashtra, the previous BJP government identified a piece of land on the outskirts of the financial hub of Mumbai to build a detention centre. Reports said the government of West Bengal state also identified two locations - near capital Kolkata and in North 24 Parganas district - to construct detention centres.   Though there are no official figures, India's powerful Home Minister Amit Shah, while addressing an election rally in September 2018, claimed the country has about four million undocumented migrants.  Among the 1.9 million undocumented migrants who could not make it to the NRC list in Assam, nearly half were Muslims, according to a report by the United Against Hate group. Now, India's 200 million Muslims fear the process will be implemented across the country by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to marginalise the community. The passing of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) last month has aggravated such fears, leading to huge protests across the country and resulting in at least 26 deaths so far. The CAA grants Indian citizenship to six religious groups, except Muslims, from the neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who came to the country before 2015.  But Tanweer Fazal, who teaches political science at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University was not convinced. "It is an easily understood fact if a non-Muslim gets excluded from NRC, then CAA can be his saviour. So only Muslims are left to go to the detention centres," he told Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/human-india-largest-detention-centre-ready-200102044649934.html

2.      Muslims organize: Jan., 5, 2020: As nationwide demonstrations entered their fourth week, India’s Muslims — long a fragmented group — organized into a formidable force against a contentious citizenship law. At least 100,000 people gathered Saturday in Hyderabad, India’s technology hub, to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a new law they say will strip the country of its secular foundations, maintaining steady pressure on the government as demonstrations entered their fourth week. The protests have drawn massive crowds across India, with more than 200,000 people gathering in Kochi city, in the southern state of Kerala, on New Year’s Day. And in Delhi, hundreds continued to camp out on a vital stretch of highway that links the capital to its suburbs, bristling against one of the city’s coldest winters in decades. While the protests are the biggest threat yet to Mr. Modi’s tenure in office, they may also be the beginning of a deeper political and social shift in India. From the start the protests have attracted Indians across political stripes and creeds. But with India’s Muslims spearheading the demonstrations this past week, the 200-million strong minority showed it can organize as a formidable force to check Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. The protests began in December when the government passed a law that uses religion as a criterion for determining whether illegal migrants in India can be fast-tracked for citizenship. The measure favors members of all South Asia’s major religions except Islam, India’s second largest faith. Muslims worry that the law will be coupled with a citizenship test and used to strip them of their Indian .In Hyderabad on Saturday, protesters came out in large numbers despite police restrictions capping the gatherings at 1,000 participants. Organizers said the demonstrations drew 200,000 people, while the local authorities pegged the number at 100,000. The city’s Muslim community organized the protests, and volunteers handed out water and Indian flags. That Muslims continue to organize protests that turn out such large numbers nearly a month after demonstrations first began is remarkable, considering the fragmented nature of the community, among the nation’s poorest and most illiterate, and its limited political power. Indian Muslims hold slightly less than 5 percent of parliamentary seats, despite making up 14 percent of the population. On Saturday, some protesters held placards reading, “I am an Indian by choice, not by chance,” a reference to the millions of Muslims who chose to stay in a secular India during the country’s bloody 1947 partition, when Pakistan was carved out of the subcontinent as a homeland for Muslims. Since India gained its independence from Britain, the country’s Muslims have never protested in such large numbers, said Farhan Nasir, 27, a doctor who attended the protest in Hyderabad, and is Muslim. “If you will break us, we will unite. For the first time, Muslims are protesting on the street in large numbers.” Dr. Nasir said Muslims felt compelled to address the governing party’s divisive politics and sectarianism. He added that the community historically had been so focused on making ends meet that it was unorganized politically and socially. But that is changing, he said, as they feel increasingly threatened by Mr. Modi’s government.“This could be the beginning of a new politics for Muslims and for India as well,” he said. “This will not fizzle out; the protest is in a secular direction.” Some protesters expressed impatience with Mr. Modi’s sectarian politics, pointing to inflammatory statements he and other party leaders made ahead of national elections last year even as the country faced a weakening economy and unemployment at a 45-year high. “Elections should be fought on the issues of economy, employment, inflation and not on religion issues,” said Syed Salman Ahmad, 27, a civil engineer. The atmosphere at Hyderabad’s demonstration was festive, with hawkers selling lemonade and snacks, protesters sporting painted Indian flags on their cheeks and groups of women banding together in song until the sun set. (My comments: THIS MUSILM UNITY SHOULD ENCOMPASS KASHMIRIS AS WELL) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/world/asia/india-protests-modi-citizenship.html

3.     Muslims unite: Jan., 5, 2020: Ironically, the unholy trinity of the National Register of Citizens-Citizenship (Amendment) Act-National Population Register, designed to place a question mark on the citizenship of Muslims in India, has had the unintended consequence of reaffirming their Indian identity. Despite having chosen to stay in India after independence, weathering the rising tide of communalism that Partition brought, Muslims in India have constantly had their patriotism questioned. Most Muslim leaders that the freedom struggle had produced left for Pakistan, and it is safe to say that since independence, Muslims have had no leader with a pan-India appeal. As per the report of the Sachar Committee, the participation of Muslims in all fields of public life, including their numbers in the armed  forces, the police, bureaucracy, educational institutions and even organised private sector employment is disproportionately low, lower even than the Scheduled Castes and at par or lower than the Schedules Tribes.With the rise of the political right, increasingly, the public discourse of “nationalism” was coopted by jingoism, toxic masculinity and communalism. Every bigot started referring to her/himself as a “nationalist”. At every step, Muslims were accused of being anti-national or pro-Pakistan and told to go to Pakistan. All individuals, associations and collectives subscribing to liberal values were put in the box as not being patriotic enough or being soft on terrorists, separatists, infiltrators and sundry anti-nationals, most of which were synonyms for Muslims. Symbols are always vulnerable to appropriation and the tricolour became synonymous with the neo-nationalists, who were carrying it to their rallies and literally wearing it on their sleeves. The image of the tricolour flying in the protest march in Jammu taken out being tried for the brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Kathua was seared into public memory. Lynchings in the name of cow slaughter, extra-judicial killings, absurd laws criminalising forms of divorce already rendered ineffective by the Supreme Court, five acres of land given to compensate the irreparable damage to the secular fabric of the nation caused by the illegal demolition of a 464-year-old mosque, revocation of Article 370 and the ensuing clampdown in Kashmir – none of these was able to awaken the Indian Muslim and force them to leave the safety of their homes to venture onto streets that felt increasingly hostile and alien. And then, the government went a little too far and passed a series of laws, the net effect of which is to require Muslims to prove their citizenship or face prosecution, providing all other communities a safe passage. The rest, as they say, is history. Finally, the knife had cut too close to the bone. The protests began in Jamia Millia Islamia and quickly spread to Aligarh Muslim University and then to the rest of the country. The fact that the protests started in Jamia is also apt and in keeping with its historic tradition. Jamia Millia Islamia was founded by Muslim leaders who felt that AMU was too colonial in its outlook and Muslims should come forward and be equal participants in the freedom movement. These leaders broke away from AMU and Jamia was founded as a centre of the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movements, with Mahatma Gandhi as its patron. Gandhiji once pledged that if need be, he would go around with a begging bowl to fund the fledgling university.  “Jo abr yahaṅ se utthega, wo sarey jahaṅ par barsega (The cloud (of revolution) rising up from here will rain down on the whole world).” The intention here is not to communalise and colour what is quintessentially a pan-India people’s movement as a Muslim movement. It is only to emphasise that for the first time since independence, Muslims have emerged on to the streets to raise their voice and claim an equal share in the political discourse of their country. It is true that protests do not win elections. Let us even assume for a moment that the majority of the people are still behind Modi and back the discriminatory law. But for the first time since the Modi-Shah combine came to power, there is nationwide opposition to their discriminatory and divisive policies and rhetoric. And this opposition is not by any political party or individual. It is by the people themselves. The protests are notable for their spontaneity and lack of leadership. Student leaders, stars of popular culture, local and regional icons are seen floating from one protest to another, trying to find their own role in what is in the truest sense a people’s movement. The common Muslim man and woman have decided to wait no longer for this political party or that, this leader or that, to voice their concerns. Nor are they lamenting the lack of national leadership in their community. Men and women, old and young, have taken to the streets and decided to speak for themselves. Unlike the #Notinmyname protests of 2017 to protest the lynching of Muslims in the name of gau raksha (cow protection), where persons of all other communities came together (on a much smaller scale) to say that they do not want atrocities against Muslims to be perpetrated on the pretext of protection of Hinduism, this time Muslims are not merely the object of the protest, they are leading the movement from the front. The protests have been marked by Muslims reclaiming India’s national icons and symbols. Men wearing skullcaps and women wearing hijabs waving the tricolour or even with the tricolour painted on their faces have taken over the streets and protest venues in practically every city in the country. Muslims no longer feel constrained to restrict themselves to pictures of Maulana Azad and Zakir Hussain to rally around. They are reclaiming national leaders as their own, as people who fought for their freedom, the freedom that is sought to be taken away today. Mahatma Gandhi, who we hear about these days only when his assassin is glorified, is once again a symbol of resistance. Dr B.R. Ambedkar once again belongs to ‘We The People’ he gave the constitution to and is not the reserve of one political party in Uttar Pradesh. Alongside these, as Hasrat Mohani’s “Inquilab Zindabad”, Bismil Azimabadi’s “Sarfaroshi ki tamanna” and Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s “Hum dekhenge” become rallying cries once again, it is also a reminder that Muslims of the sub-continent are no strangers to the fight for civil liberties. In fact, so perplexed and clueless is the establishment by the uprising that they have started resorting to absurdities like ordering an enquiry into whether Faiz’s “Hum dekhenge” is anti-Hindu in its reference to idol breaking. Perhaps the director of IIT Kanpur would do well to look up the meaning of the word ‘iconoclast’, which literally means breaker of idols but has come to mean someone who attacks entrenched institutions and ideas, and note that Ambedkar has been described by the famous former Supreme Court judge, Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, as a “creative iconoclast”. Perhaps Justice Krishna Iyer was referring to something other than desecration of idols. As was Faiz. Simultaneously with the reclaiming of national symbols and icons, there is a reaffirmation of their Muslim identity by the Muslim protesters. Protests are paused for namaz, and non-Muslims protestors form human chains around the people offering prayers. Duas (prayers) for a roll-back of the discriminatory law are being conducted after namaz in mosques. Rozas (fasts) have been observed in various places as a statement of solidarity with the fight against NRC-CAA-NPR and community iftars are being organised. In Jamia, Shaheen Bagh and surrounding Muslim areas, a whole culture and routine has emerged around the protests. Over the course of the three odd weeks that the protests have continued, the number of women participating has increased steadily. The age demographic has also changed, from a student movement to a movement of persons of all ages from all walks of life. School children are seen waving anti-CAA banners from school buses, grandmothers are coming to protests in wheelchairs and raising slogans. As the number of headscarves at protest venues has multiplied, the protests venues have responded by becoming more gender sensitive. One of the two mosques on campus in Jamia has been converted into a mosque reserved exclusively for women; and its washrooms have been set aside for their use. In Shaheen Bagh, a shamiana has been erected in the middle of the road with carpets for seating to provide some barrier against the biting cold to the women who have been sitting on dharna day and night, some of them with their children. For a community that is often accused of gender inequality, these are welcome signs that the churn is not just outside but also within. It is a little-known fact that Allama Iqbal actually wrote two taranas. One, which we know so well – “Saare jahan se achcha Hindustan hamara” to imbue a national identity and sense of pride among the people of India, and the other lesser known one – “Cheen-o-Arab hamara Hindustan hamara, Muslim hein hum watan hai saara jahana hamara” to engender a global Muslim identity and emphasise the stake Muslims have in India. It seems today that Indian Muslims have fused together the two to raise a new slogan – “Muslim hein hum watan hai Hindustan hamara”. https://thewire.in/rights/anti-caa-nrc-npr-protests-muslims

4.     Muslims targeted: Jan., 6, 2020: A video recorded by human rights activist Kavita Krishnan, who visited the area of Muzaffarnagar in the norther Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, shows one home that has been broken into with furniture and glass smashed, in what she says was a deliberate attack by police to intimidate those protesting against a proposed citizenship law in India. Other pictures show homes completely destroyed, with belongings strewn across the floor  Krishnan posted pictures of damage to properties she alleges was caused by Uttar Pradesh  . During the incident in Muzaffarnagar on the night of December 20, Kavita told Metro.co.uk that a number of Muslim homes had been targeted by the police, with pictures showing widespread damage to another property, with the bathroom and living room destroyed. Human Rights Watch has accused the government of targeting Muslim communities to quell the protests  Kavita, who visited the area as part of a fact finding mission for human rights organisations such as United Against Hate, said many of those whose homes were alleged to have been involved were fearful of speaking out due to reprisals. She said: ‘The Uttar Pradesh police destroyed every last bit of furniture. ‘The families told me that the reason they didn’t destroy the entire property and kept it standing was because they said once we’ve kicked you out of the country, we will come and live here’. She added that it ‘was only Muslims families that had been targeted’ and described the level of violence as ‘unprecedented’. India has been gripped by protests over the last month over changed to citizenship laws   She claims the homes had been attacked as part of a message to the whole neighbourhood not to protest against the citizenship law. Kavita claims that a number of people were also taken away by police during the raids on their homes, with their plight still unknown. She said: ‘What is happening right now in India, is politicians from the ruling BJP government are stirring up violence against minorities. ‘The citizenship law is an attempt by the government of India to select who can and cannot be citizens of the state’. Human rights groups have asked the police to exercise restraint    . A spokesperson from Human Rights Watch said: ‘The police, particularly in Uttar Pradesh state, has targeted Muslim communities to quell protests. ‘At least 19 people have been killed. There are serious allegations of police abuse in custody including against children. ‘Instead of investigating allegations and ordering security forces to respect human rights laws and exercise restraint during violent protests, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state, a prominent BJP leader, has called for revenge and threatened to confiscate properties of those arbitrarily accused of violent protests.’ Australian hillside on fire 'looks like it's covered in lava' The spokesperson added that there has been a record of human rights abuses across India ‘where the BJP is responsible for state administration’ and rather than ‘dispelling concerns about its anti-secular policies, have accused activists and critics’. It also called on the government to abolish the recent amendments to the citizenship law which it said it are: ‘Inherently discriminatory since it privileges religious minorities who became irregular migrants to India from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan before 2014. ‘It discriminates asylum claims both on the basis of country of origin and faith.’https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/05/muslim-homes-ransacked-indian-police-amid-crackdown-protests-12004978/

5.     Muslims targeted: Jan., 8, 2020: Sometimes Arshad Hussain disappears. He will be sitting on the bed, watching relatives, neighbors and journalists pour into his house when suddenly scenes of his dead son wash over him.“I find myself on the street, staring at the concrete path where my son bled to death,” he said quietly, leaning against the exposed brick walls of his house in Nehtaur, a small north Indian town about 190 kilometers (120 miles) from New Delhi. His 20-year-old son, Anas Ahmad, was among 16 Muslims killed across the state of Uttar Pradesh on Dec. 20, the deadliest day in unrelenting violence that has engulfed India for almost a month. The victims included an 8-year-old boy. Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets to oppose a new law that grants a path to citizenship for immigrants of every religion except Islam. Many say the law, passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, discriminates against Muslims and undermines the country’s secular foundations. Police have used baton charges, tear gas and sometimes live ammunition against protesters, leaving at least 23 dead nationwide.The crackdown has been the harshest in the heartland state of Uttar Pradesh, where Muslims comprise 20% of the population of 200 million.Relatives of eight of the 16 people who died on Dec. 20 told the AP that their family members had been killed by police fire. Police deny using guns, but a smartphone video seen by the AP shows an officer firing at protesters in Meerut and residents of the city said they saw police firing weapons that day.Five people died in Meerut, the highest toll anywhere that day. The city, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of New Delhi, was teeming with people marching toward a market intersection to protest after Friday prayers, residents said. At first, people emerged from the city’s narrow lanes in twos and threes. A crowd of 30 to 40 formed. Half an hour later, the number had risen to the hundreds. By the time police arrived in protective gear, the gathering had become a buzzing congregation. Soon officers resorted to baton charge and tear gas. Several residents said this was followed by gunfire, forcing people to scamper for safety. Hours later, the town convulsed in tragic news: Five men had died of gunshot wounds. Mohammad Naseem said he was standing beside his 45-year-old friend, Zaheer Ahmed, when a hail of bullets, which he said came from the police side, tore over their heads. Naseem said his friend was sitting next to a shop front, puffing on a cigarette, when he saw him fall sideways. “When the sound of bullets stopped, I went closer to check on him and he was dead,” he said  Residents in Meerut and Nehtaur say the deaths were followed by a police crackdown, deepening fear among Muslims. Others offered similar accounts elsewhere in the state, alleging police killings and vandalism. The police deny the charges. CCTV surveillance video and mobile phone footage from Meerut shows officers vandalizing cars and motorbikes, breaking house windows and dragging people in the streets after making arrests. Police could also be seen destroying CCTV cameras in one place. Competing narratives of the violence illustrate the brewing tensions in a state led by a hard-line Hindu monk, Yogi Adityanath, who has called for revenge against protesters. A day before the deaths, he told reporters that those vandalizing public property in protests would have to pay damages. Many believe that Adityanath, the state’s chief minister, is following Modi’s path of Hindu nationalism. Activists who visited the state on fact-finding mission days after the deaths accused police of a “reign of terror” and “brazenly targeting” Muslims. “For the state, Muslims are like insects. They kill us at will,” said Anwar Usmani, whose nephew Mohammad Sulaiman was killed in Nehtaur. In Muzaffarnagar, a town 60 kilometers (35 miles) from Meerut, 74-year-old Haji Anwaar Ilahi said dozens of policemen barged into his four-story house on the night of Dec. 20, “destroying everything that came in their way.” His grandchildren examined what they said was proof of police vandalism: a transparent police baton left behind in a pile of electronics, broken crockery, and torn books. https://apnews.com/438b3ce98203991115beb8aa5d5db06b

6.     Creeping nationalism: Jan., 10, 2020:  There are times when a people must be reminded that their thoughts, speech and actions are self-destructive and threaten their country and the values that hold it together. Such a time is upon India’s Hindus. A growing number of Hindus now speak the insecure and angry language of those willing to discard their own culture, law and constitution and succumb to the dark fantasies of Hindu supremacy. Majoritarian visions, now openly expressed, empowered and normalised as reality, are the armoury from which India’s ruling party fashions its arsenal of Hindu supremacist behaviour, from the assaults on India’s universities to using a raft of laws, new and old, against Muslims.   The fundamentalists among the Hindus may not even be a majority. But they are more than they were, and they hold the key to determining the course India will take. The radicalised, or those they have brow-beaten into submission, now control large swathes of India’s unfolding narratives. Hindu-first policies, symbols and feelings are now predominant in politics, in the media, among the judiciary and the police and in public life. Hospital unions in Mumbai fly the bhagwa dhwaj, the Hindu flag, while police vehicles and public transport in Bangalore and elsewhere are adorned with images of Hindu gods. The main opposition party, created by secular consensus, now promotes cow shelters, corporate India makes pilgrimages to the bastion of Hindutva in Nagpur and Bollywood crafts movies that demonise Muslims and celebrate — often through fictionalised history — Hindu warriors. The rest of India has not entirely been levelled by the rising storm of Hindu radicalisation. Indeed, it has sparked a rediscovery and reclamation of the flag, the Constitution and poetry of resistance from the younger, violent days of the republic’s birth. That is why beleaguered Muslims, have found their voice. That is why teachers and students – of all religions – defy violent Hindu goons and radicalised police forces who disgrace their uniform, the law of the land and the Constitution they have sworn to uphold. That is why a war for the soul of India rages on the streets, in universities, homes, families and WhatsApp groups. The unspoken trigger for Hindu radicalisation over the years, we hear, is Muslim radicalisation. We hear of a proclivity for terrorism, evident after a spate of bombings in the wake of the Babri Masjid’s destruction in 1992 and the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. Those days of actions and reactions were instrumental in dividing India, the schisms enabled and widened by what were then considered "fringe" Hindu groups, including a fledgling Bharatiya Janata Party. Yet, as the Muslim middle class joined the India growth story, a generation has risen that is proudly Indian and, often, avowedly Islamic, something that many Hindus — themselves given to a rising religiosity — find hard to accept. The common perceptions about Muslims today, even among many liberal Hindus, include their fecundity, violence, "appeasement" by political parties except the BJP, and their special privileges. These are patently false. We know that Muslims are among India’s most disadvantaged and discriminated communities. In the Modi era, despite insult, humiliation and lynching, they have been silent — until now. State-sponsored or police atrocities against Muslims are not new. One of the most egregious was in 1987, the year of what came to be called the Hashimpura massacre, when the Uttar Pradesh police rounded up 42 Muslim men, lined then up near a canal and shot them dead firing-squad style. They dumped the bodies of the mostly young Muslims in the water, went home and slept. Many of the policemen involved were arrested and tried. The court verdict came 28 years later in 2015. All the suspects were acquitted but, on appeal, convicted in 2016, which is when Vibhuti Narain Rai, the superintendent of police at the time, released his book, Hashimpura 22 May, an account of the massacre and its aftermath. "The relation between the Indian state and the minorities is almost the same now as it was then in 1987 or even earlier, in the 1950s and the 1960s," Rai, who became a university vice-chancellor and literary editor after his law-enforcement days, wrote in 2016."The same absence of trust, the same hatred, the same prejudices, the same notions, and the same requirement and attempt to prove their ‘Indian-ness’. Nothing has changed. It is as if the more things change, the more they remain the same. Or perhaps, worsen."  Rai writes about "a spineless, politically expedient government lying prostrate before its own men in 2015 — the killers". The difference in 2019 UP and Delhi is that it is the police who prostrate themselves, willingly, because they are overwhelmingly Hindu and more open to the call of religious radicalisation than ever. The planning that determines police actions often comes from the top — Adityanath in UP, Amit Shah in Delhi. In other states, such as Karnataka, Jharkhand and Gujarat, the police act of their own accord. In Jharkhand, they have protected or ignored lynch mobs. In Karnataka’s Mangaluru city, the hub of an educated, prosperous Hindutva, officers were caught on video mocking colleagues with rifles for not killing Muslim rioters. In Hyderabad, Telangana, the police admit they profile Muslims in international IT companies. The radicalisation template was, of course, created in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, where a rich Hindu can stop a rich Muslim from buying the house next door by filing a case under a "Disturbed Areas Act", meant to keep the communities apart and relegate Muslims to ghettos. The complicity of government officials, police, politicians and judges in the creation of the Hindu rashtra, the Hindu nation, has now gone national, as we have seen in subjugation of the Constitution and the law in reducing Jammu and Kashmir and clearing the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The protests sweeping India are essentially a fightback, however delayed, against the ongoing process of creating a Hindu nation. Until yesterday, it appeared a foregone conclusion. Today, we are not so sure. The ruling party and its affiliates believe the protests do not have the cachet they appear to have, that half a million people marching on any day are but a fraction of 1.3 billion, that almost all Hindu India is with the government. The ruling party and its affiliates believe they can disregard not just the secular consensus and Constitution holding India together but continue the march towards a Hindu nation forged by fear and force. Only Hindus can prove this proposition — and the depth of their own radicalisation — wrong. If they do not, we know what awaits. https://www.dawn.com/news/1527252/the-growing-radicalisation-of-hindus-threatens-the-indian-republic-and-the-constitution

7.     Muslims evicted: Jan., 10, 2020: As many as 450 houses were razed and over 3,000 people were evicted in Sootea in Assam’s Sonitpur district on 5-6 December 2019 after “a local legislator entered 10 villages in the area with bulldozers and paramilitary personnel,” Arab News reported. A press release issued by Jamaat-e-Islami-Hind (JIH) on 26 December 2019 claimed that 426 Muslim families were evicted because “they belonged to the minority community and did not vote for BJP MLA Padma Hazarika   of “cultivation”. BJP MLA Padma Hazarika told Afroz Alam Sahil, a freelance journalist who did a ground report on this, that they are “encroachers, and are Bangladeshis, so we wouldn’t let them stay.” Afroz told The Quint that all the families that have been evicted are Muslim families and are living in three different camps. However, Singh denied that they are living in any camps. According to Arab News, people living in the camps mentioned that no government official has visited them. The evicted families have settled in three different camps. People who have been evicted claim that Hazarika did so because they are not voters of that area. According to Arab News, 65-year-old Akkas Ali, a farmer who is staying at a nearby makeshift camp, said, “My fault is that I am not registered as a voter in the Sootea Assembly constituency where my village falls. I have my vote in the neighboring constituency. Local Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Padma Hazarika, with support from the administration, threw me and more than 450 families out from the area just because we don’t vote for him.” Ali further told Arab News, “The government says we are encroachers and Bangladeshis, and they evicted us from our own land despite having all the documents. The larger goal, I feel, is that the BJP wants to settle down Hindu Bengalis in this area who will act as a permanent vote bank for the party  They didn’t get their voter IDs changed because in Assam, the chances of them becoming a ‘D’ Voter’ increase, he added. If you are a D (Doubtful) voter in Assam, it means your citizenship is doubtful or under dispute. “In the recent process of NRC, they didn’t get the time to get their voter IDs changed,” he said quoting the locals.   Afroz said that people who have been evicted have the relevant NRC documents. “Their names are there in 1951 NRC, 1971 NRC, even the latest NRC,” he said.  The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed by Parliament, seeks to provide citizenship to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The cut-off date to qualify for citizenship under CAA is 31 December 2014. https://www.thequint.com/news/families-evicted-in-assam-bjp-mla-claims-they-are-encroacher-bangladeshi

8.     Saudi India ties: Jan., 13, 2020: Tremendous strides have been made in India’s relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in the past few years. The relationship has indeed progressed  “from a purely buyer-seller relationship” toward a “closer strategic partnership that will include Saudi investments in downstream oil and gas projects.” However, the delay in welcoming Saudi money and recent events in India regarding Kashmir and CAA have made the relationship tenuous.  India is the third largest export destination of Saudi Arabia at $19.4 billion (after China and Japan). In 2018-19 (as per DGFT), the India-Saudi bilateral trade has increased by 23.83 % to US $ 34.03 billion. India imports 200,000 tons of LPG every month from the Kingdom. The 2.6 million (as of August 2019) strong Indian community in Saudi Arabia is the largest expatriate community in the Kingdom. The Haj pilgrimage is another important component of bilateral relations. Nearly 7,00,000 Indians also visit the Kingdom to perform Hajj or Umra every year. The Hajj quota was increased by 24, 975 in 2019, enabling 2,00, 000 Indians performing Hajj in 2019. This determines that until now the bilateral relationship has been defined by religious travel, migrant workers, remittances and oil trade. However, the scope to go above and beyond this towards more meaningful investment has been tapped by both the governments. In its largest ever push to bilateral relations, Saudi Arabia is believed to be looking to invest US $100 billion in India, in areas of energy, refining, petrochemicals, infrastructure, agriculture and mining. Oil giant Saudi Aramco has two major investment plans in the country: strategic investment in the greenfield petroleum refinery in Maharashtra and a $15 billion worth 20% stake acquisition in the refining and petrochemicals business of Reliance Industries (RIL The proposed Maharashtra project is the largest greenfield refinery in India and will involve investments from Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, the United Arab Emirates’ ADNOC and Indian public-sector oil companies. Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (RRPCL) which is implementing this project is a joint venture between the Indian Oil Corporation (IOCl), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL). Saudi Arabian Oil Company – Saudi Aramco and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) are also partners for this project and own 50 % stake in the mammoth project. The 1.2 million barrels a day refinery and associated petrochemical project has been projected as one of the biggest projects in the country that will bring large foreign direct investment (FDI). Recent reports indicate that the benchmark value has been raised from $44 billion to $70 billion for the project. This would require Indian PSUs to raise their investment from $22 billion to $35 billion, an increase of Rs 1 lakh crore, financing plans for which are not yet public, and are the object of much discussion, given the weakened cash flows of Indian PSUs and public finances. There have already been incredible delays on part of the government of India (GoI) with regard to the refinery and the Saudi’s have of late clearly begun to indicate their restlessness “the ball is in their court” Earlier the project was proposed to come up in Nanar village in Ratnagiri district some 400 kms South of Mumbai. Due to opposition from the locals the project was relocated to neighbouring Raigad, 100 km south of the financial capital. Of course, there would legitimate concerns of the locals, but it is beyond belief that an agreement of this scale was made without providing adequate assurances to the original owners of the land or making them partners in this huge investment. Apart from land acquisition issues now there are reports that India is looking at cutting capacity at this oil refinery to match lower fuel demand projections and contain costs which jumped to $70 billion due to stringent environment norms and relocation of the site. the refinery which was initially projected to cost $44 billion (about Rs 3.08 lakh crore) will now cost to an estimated $70 billion (about Rs 4.9 lakh crore) because costs of meeting environment norms such as not producing petroleum coke, and relocation of the plant were not estimated. Also, the cost of land acquisition should have been calculated when plans of the project of such size were being made. The mega project was anticipated to be commissioned by 2022, however incessant delays have pushed the deadline to 2025  India also needs Saudi support to build its planned emergency crude reserves as a buffer against volatility. India has at present 5.3 million tons of underground reserves in 3 locations Vizag, Mangalore and Padur which can meet about 10 days of the country’s oil needs. New Delhi plans two new reserves with a combined capacity of 6.5 million tons enough to cover for an additional 12 days. Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Ltd (ISPRL) has signed an agreement with Aramco to lease part of the 2.5 million tone Padur storage in Karnataka.  Investment from Saudi Arabia cannot be left to errors if India wants to achieve emergency crude reserves of its seven (another 6.5 mt facility at Padur in Karnataka, Chandikhole in Odisha, at Bikaner in Rajasthan and Rajkot in Gujarat) Strategic Petroleum Reserves facilities which would together hold about 128 million barrels of oil. Riyadh has become more amenable to India’s concerns on radicalisation and terrorism. Cooperation in the fields of anti-piracy operations and CT has been an important part of India’s ties. The extradition agreement between the two countries has greatly aided the cause of India’s fight against terrorism with Riyadh handing over individuals wanted in India. Saudi Arabia has also been extremely obliging in its position on Kashmir, providing subtle support to GoI’s policy. Closer relations with the custodian of the Muslim holy shrines assists in appeasing and validating the Indians government’s actions among sections of the Muslim community.  When the Saudi Crown Prince Md Bin Salman expressed understanding about India’s approach and actions in Jammu and Kashmir, it was a significant accomplishment for the Modi government and a definite snub to Pakistan. However, the blowback over the vociferous criticism of India’s policies vis-à-vis CAA-NRC led by a bloc of Muslim countries (Pakistan, Malaysia and Turkey) will eventually affect India’s foreign relations with all the Gulf nations especially with the KSA. Within the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), the pressure is beginning to show on Saudi Arabia and UAE. It is only a matter of time before the Kingdom and self-professed leader of the Sunni Muslim world, succumbs to the negative propaganda by Pakistan wrapped around a Hindu-Muslim narrative, and withdraws its subtle support to India over Kashmir. In fact, the negative repercussions have already come in the form of Saudi Arabia agreeing to convene a special Foreign Ministers’ meeting of the OIC devoted to Kashmir. Although this is being touted as quid pro quo to Islamabad for giving a pass to the Islamic Summit in Kuala Lumpur, the fact remains that this recompense to appease Pakistan is at the expense of India’s foreign policy interests. Projected to become the world’s third largest economy Saudi Arabia is contemplating large scale investment in India. The fact that India has the world’s third largest Muslim population is certainly a consideration in Saudi Arabia’s Asian portfolio. Commencing work on the refinery would have opened the doors to Saudi investment in other sectors such as agriculture and infrastructure which PM Modi himself has touted as an “opportunity multiplier.” However, with blisters in the very first trial it is doubtful that the Saudis would want to further scald themselves on purpose. In any case a slowdown in the economy as well as a shift towards EVs has affected fuel demand. Aramco, which raised $25.6 billion by selling 1.5% shares in the world’s biggest initial public offering recently, has also been expected to participate in the proposed sale of public sector oil marketing and refining company BPCL. The participation of Aramco in the sale programme through the disinvestment of BPCL and other state assets is crucial for bridging the huge fiscal deficit that India faces currently  Growing pressure from non-Wahabbi Muslim nations on Saudi Arabia with regard to Kashmir and CAA requires close monitoring by the MEA. If that support snaps, then UAE may follow and OIC, hither to quiet, may become belligerent. A friendly Saudi royalty can be ensured only via investment red carpets. The lack of it could lead to unsustainable diplomatic pressures and worrying noises on oil export to India. The only relationship that will continue is of NRIs continuing to work in Saudi Arabia and remit nearly $10 billion per year. https://thewire.in/external-affairs/india-saudi-arabia-ties-caa-nrc

9.     Free Kashmir posters: Jan., 13, 2020: Chennai, January 12 (KMS): In a series of one after another incident indicating that the freedom struggle in occupied Jammu and Kashmir has become an icon for the Indian masses, especially minorities, living under Modi-led fascist government, posters reading ‘Free Kashmir’ are now being frequently spotted during protest demonstrations in length and breadth of India. Despite registration of treason cases against the people displaying such posters in the recent past, the newest reading ‘Free Kashmir’ was spotted at a protest demonstration against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Law in Chennai, the other day. Earlier, such placards were also seen during protests in New Delhi and Mumbai. A poster was raised by a woman protesting violence against the students and faculty members of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). After Delhi, something similar also took place during a Mumbai protest on January 6 when a girl was seen holding a ‘Free Kashmir’ poster. Other demonstrators were also seen holding placards that said various things they were protesting against.  https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/12/after-delhi-and-mumbai-free-kashmir-poster-seen-in-chennai/

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12.                        BJP and Muslims of India: Jan., 14, 2020: The BJP wants to suppress Indian Muslims and secularists who see them as equal citizens. But police violence has backfired  In the middle of December, Delhi police tried to shut down university protests against the religiously discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) by caning Muslim students into submission. Police officers smashed their way into the library at Jamia Millia Islamia university (where I teach history), trashed bookcases and beat the students inside, badly damaging the eyesight of one in the process. They threw teargas grenades into the reading room to force students out. Their excuse was they were chasing violent demonstrators who had taken refuge in campus buildings. Last week, Delhi police also assembled outside another educational establishment. This time the police remained decorously outside the gates of Jawaharlal Nehru University, India’s most well known, cordoning off the campus as masked goons armed with iron rods and improvised bludgeons ran riot inside. They broke into a hostel reserved for women students, inflicted head injuries on the president of JNU’s student union, who is a woman, and attacked faculty members who tried to protect them. Some 20 students and teachers were hospitalised. After three hours of thuggery the police entered the university at the vice-chancellor’s belated invitation but made no arrests because the criminals had mysteriously slipped away despite the police cordon.The Delhi police was the common factor in the two assaults, in the first instance as perpetrator and in the second as auxiliary. The force reports to the home affairs minister, Amit Shah, prime minister Narendra Modi’s right-hand man. Jamia and JNU are centrally funded universities that have attracted the violent displeasure of Modi’s government for different but related reasons. Taken together, these reasons define the ruling Bharatiya Janata party’s majoritarian project – its reason for being. The government was confident that making a violent example of a Muslim university would play well in public The attack on Jamia was triggered by the BJP government’s determination to snuff out protests against the CAA, which excludes Muslim migrants from the amnesty given to others from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Having smuggled into law a religious test for citizenship for one class of migrants, the government hopes to press its advantage further by forcing Indians to prove their citizenship to a latterday inquisition, the National Register of Citizens. The NRC is the citizenship act’s evil twin; those who aren’t able to document their claim to being Indian before the tribunals of the NRC will be cast into limbo – but non-Muslims among them can hope to be rescued by the CAA’s amnesty.  Undocumented Muslims will have no such recourse; they will be interned and deported as Amit Shah promised in the speeches he made all over the country. This destabilisation of Muslim citizenship is a great prize for a majoritarian party such as the BJP which sees India as a Hindu nation, Hindus as its natural citizens and Muslims as potential fifth columnists with extraterritorial loyalties. Jamia was brazenly attacked by the police of this would-be Hindu nation because the government was confident that making a violent example of a Muslim university would play well in public. Against the odds, this attempt to shock Indian Muslims into submission by brutalising a Muslim university backfired – for two reasons. First, the assault galvanised Muslims all over the country into spontaneous and sustained resistance to the CAA and NRC. Second, the police atrocities in Jamia led to huge demonstrations of solidarity in colleges and universities all over India and sparked a fire of resistance, against the furtive bigotry of the CAA, which continues to burn. The BJP has long believed that its anti-Muslim project has two enemies: Muslims, and those non-Muslims who see Muslims as equal citizens under the constitution. The Delhi police made an example of Jamia as a warning to India’s Muslims. When that didn’t go according to plan, the same police travelled several miles across the city to help make an example of a university that the BJP sees as the institutional incarnation of the secularism that might yet thwart its dreams of a Hindu nation. Since majoritarian parties are constitutionally incapable of empathy, the BJP understands JNU’s brand of secular solidarity as a form of Hindu self-hatred. For the better part of Modi’s first term in office, there has been a running battle between JNU students and central government, a David and Goliath standoff that has turned student politicians into national figures. But the BJP’s loathing of the university is obsessive and wildly out of proportion to the threat that its students and teachers pose. Stung by the pan-Indian support that Jamia’s anti-CAA protests have provoked, Modi’s government seems to have concluded that it was all JNU’s fault. Otherwise it is hard to believe that a dispute over accommodation charges – the last source of conflict between JNU students and the authorities to make headlines – could goad a national government into risking complicity in this violent charade. The only other explanation for the attack is that it was an attempt to turn attention away from the anti-CAA protests by giving people something else to be outraged about. It’s hard to predict what lasting effect the assaults on these two universities will have on Indian politics. A party that controls the state will generally outlast spontaneous civil society movements that lack political leadership. For the moment, though, the passion (and existential panic) that has powered this campaign against sectarianism seems to have deranged Modi’s leviathan.  . https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/13/attacks-delhi-universities-modi-muslims-allies

13.                        Protest spreads: Jan., 16, 2020: The cool and hip graffiti on the shutters of an abandoned building in Church Street, in the heart of Bengaluru, where youngsters are often spotted taking selfies and shooting amateur music videos, turned into ground zero over the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on Tuesday. The commotion began when office goers and others spotted spray-painted graffiti with protest slogans saying ‘No CAA, No NRC’, ‘I will not show my papers’, ‘Detention Camps’ and ‘Free Kashmir’ in black, red and other colours   Bengaluru, like other places in the country, has seen a sharp rise in demonstrations and protests, both for and against CAA. But it has remained largely peaceful in contrast to some other places, including Mysuru, where a girl was recently served a notice after she was spotted carrying a ‘Free Kashmir’ poster at an anti-CAA-NRC rally. https://www.livemint.com/

14.                        HRW: Jan., 16,2020: The New York-based Human Rights Watch has criticized the Indian government for gross human rights violations including arrests, torture and communication blackout after abrogation of Kashmir’s special status in August, last year. Human Rights Watch in its World Report 2020 posted on its website said, Indian authorities also failed to protect religious minorities, used draconian sedition and counter-terrorism laws to silence peaceful dissent, and invoked foreign funding regulations and other laws to discredit and muzzle nongovernmental organizations, critical of government actions or policies. “The Indian government has tried to shut down Kashmir, hiding the full extent of the harm caused there,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch in a press release. “Instead of addressing growing attacks on minorities, Indian authorities bolstered their efforts to silence critical voices in 2019,” she added. The report said, “Prior to its actions in Jammu and Kashmir, the government deployed additional troops …, shut down the internet and phones, and arbitrarily detained thousands of Kashmiris, including political leaders, activists, journalists, lawyers, and potential protesters, including children. Hundreds remain in detention without charge or under house arrest to prevent protests.” It said that the Indian government blocked opposition politicians, foreign diplomats, and international journalists from independent visits to occupied Kashmir. “The Indian government’s actions in Kashmir have led to loss of livelihood and access to education. The repression resulted in international criticism including in the United States’ Congress, the European Parliament, and the United Nations Human Rights Council. Throughout the year, UN experts have raised concerns over a series of issues in India, including extrajudicial killings, potential statelessness of millions in Assam, possible eviction of tribal communities and forest-dwellers, and the communications blackout in Kashmir,” the report added. The report said that the February 14 Pulwama attack in which over 40 Indian troops were killed, led to military escalation between India and Pakistan. Following the incident, Kashmiri students and businessmen in different parts of India were harassed, beaten, and even forcibly evicted from rented housing and dorms by BJP supporters. In the 652-page World Report 2020, its 30th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in nearly 100 countries. The report said that despite numerous independent recommendations, including by United Nations experts, the India government did not review or repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which gives soldiers effective immunity from prosecution for serious human rights abuses. The law is in force in occupied Kashmir and in several states in northeast India. The HRW said that in November, following a petition by child rights activists, the Indian Supreme Court sought a detailed report from the juvenile justice committee of occupied Kashmir High Court on the detention of children and other abuses during the lockdown imposed since August. The committee earlier submitted a police list of 144 detained children, the youngest being 9, it added. About mob lynching of Muslims by Hindu extremists in India, the report said, “The government failed to properly enforce Supreme Court directives to prevent and investigate mob attacks, often led by BJP supporters, on religious minorities and other vulnerable communities. Since May 2015, extremist Hindu groups have killed 50 people and injured over 250 amid rumors that they traded or killed cows for beef. Muslims were also beaten and forced to chant Hindu slogans. Police failed to properly investigate the crimes, stalled investigations, ignored procedures, and filed criminal cases against witnesses to harass and intimidate them.” “Nearly two million people from tribal communities and forest-dwellers remained at risk of forced displacement and loss of livelihoods after a Supreme Court ruling in February 2019 to evict all those whose claims under the Forest Rights Act were rejected,” the HRW report maintained. “In the northeast state of Assam, the government published the National Register of Citizens, aimed at identifying Indian citizens and lawful residents following repeated protests and violence over irregular migration of ethnic Bengalis from Bangladesh. The list excluded nearly two million people, many of them Muslims, including many who have lived in India for years, in some cases their whole lives. There are serious allegations that the verification process was arbitrary and discriminatory. While there is a right to appeal, the government plans to build detention centers for those denied citizenship after appeal,” the report said. “The government has also said that citizenship verification will be implemented across the country and that the government will amend the citizenship laws to include all irregular migrants from neighboring countries, but excludes Muslims from the list,” it pointed out. https://kmsnews.org/news/2020/01/15/hrw-condemns-indian-government-over-atrocities-in-iok/

15.                        CAA: Jan., 21, 2020: Bangladesh and Afghanistan have opposed India’s controversial law — the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) — which cites the two together with Pakistan as the three neighbours that discriminate against non-Muslim minorities. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai told The Hindu that the law which excludes Muslims and woos Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians and Parsis from the three countries for citizenship rights should be extended to everyone equally. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, seen as a key regional ally of India’s rightwing Hindu revivalist government, criticised the new law in an interview with Dubai’s Gulf News, saying the new law was not necessary. Ms Hasina said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had personally assured her that a related new measure — the National Register of Citizens (NRC) — was an internal matter of India that would not affect her people. But the NRC is being implemented in Assam, and is proposed to be extended across the country, with a view to sending back alleged illegal Bangladeshi migrants to their country. Home Minister Amit Shah has said the proposed countrywide NRC would be used to evict Muslim “termites”. “We don’t understand why (the Indian government) did it. It was not necessary,” Ms Hasina told Gulf News in Abu Dhabi where she held high-level meetings. The statement is the first by the Bangladesh leader since the disputed law, that has triggered protests across India, was cleared by the Rajya Sabha on Dec 11.During the parliamentary debates, Home Minister Amit Shah repeatedly referred to persecution faced by minority communities, mainly the Hindus, in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan arguing that these groups should get citizenship rights in India. Ms Hasina distanced her country from the line taken by the Indian government.  “But within India, people are facing many problems,” she declared. https://www.dawn.com/news/1529438

16.                        CAA: Jan., 22, 2020: India’s former top diplomat, Deb Mukharji, has exposed brutalities of law enforcement agencies against Muslims of Uttar Pradesh (UP) for protesting against the recently passed controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). At least 28 people have been killed in the protests and hundreds more sustained injuries in clashes with police, fuelling public anger. Chief Minister UP Yogi Adityanath in December 2019 declared a war against Muslims after he vowed to “take revenge” on people protesting against the controversial citizenship law. “The attitude of the Uttar Pradesh police was perhaps best appreciated by the Bengal BJP president, who was happy that they shot protesters like dogs.” The diplomat, in his article titled “Extraordinary horrors inflicted on Muslims of UP”, writes that a “people’s tribunal” was held in Delhi on January 16, where the jury comprised former justices of the Supreme Court, a former chief justice of Delhi High Court, eminent academics and retired civil servants. In the article, he states: “The jury was ‘deeply worried and dismayed by the testimonies placed before it. It is convinced that the entire state machinery, led from the top, acted with grave prejudice and perpetrated violence targeting one particular community, the state’s Muslim population, and the social activists leading the movement.” He further writes that apart from the violence on the protesters, the police brutality included “the arrest of and filing of false cases against innocent people; the destruction of vehicles and property by entering people’s homes, as well as CCTV cameras; threats to and intimidation of people picked up [for] speaking the truth about what happened; communalised abuses against victims; custody violence even on minors; firing and killing people without following the law; preventing medical personnel from treating the injured and threatening the injured against accessing medical care”.The former envoy also discloses that the injured protesters being denied treatment at the hospital as hospital authorities “were apparently concerned about displeasing the government”.  This is a clear violation of Article 21 of Indian constitution. There were also allegations that ambulances were not provided when necessary, although the Red Cross is honoured even in war. This type of human rights violation is a crime in the international court and UP would be brought to trial if it was an independent country. The jury concludes: “The state of affairs in UP shows a complete collapse of the rule of law. In fact, the very state administration that is charged with protecting the rule of law is perpetrating violence upon its own people.” Uttar Pradesh is considered a holy place, but with the police mercilessly beating the innocent Muslims, has today become the heart of darkness, Mukharji concludes

17.                        SC: Jan., 23, 2020: India's Supreme Court has refused to put on hold the implementation of a controversial new citizenship law.The court also asked the government to respond within a month to a clutch of petitions challenging the law's constitutional validity. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-51203104#

18.                        British law makers: Jan., 23, 2020: Ambedkar International Mission (UK) and the South Asia Solidarity Group (SASG) hosted a meeting in the British parliament on Monday to talk over India's recent citizenship laws and the countrywide protest following them.The meeting discussed the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register and the protests against them across India. Several British MPs expressed their concern about the legislation, its implications for human rights and potential for mass disenfranchisement of Muslims, and the situation in India more generally.Introducing the meeting, Amrit Wilson of SASG highlighted the scale of the protests by students, women, Muslim communities, Dalits, urban and rural workers, and many others and the violence which had been unleashed on the protesters. Announcing the UK release of a jury report from the People’s Tribunal on State Action in Uttar Pradesh (India), she noted that it documented appalling violence against Muslims by the police accompanied by armed thugs affiliated to the ruling party and that this was a direct response to directions from the Chief Minister Yogi Adiyanath who had called for ‘revenge’ to be carried out against the Muslim community for protesting. The meeting, sponsored by Stephen Timms MP, was addressed by lawyer and legal scholar Gautam Bhatia who is currently involved in the Supreme Court challenge to the legislation. He explained the brazenly discriminatory nature of the CAA, the potential for mass disenfranchisement of Muslims, and why it undermines the Indian citizenship guaranteed by the Constitution. Satpal Muman, chair of the UK’s largest Dalit organisation CasteWatchUK, reminded the audience of BR Ambedkar's warning that “Hindu Raj” would be a calamity for India, and expressed solidarity with the masses on the streets in India defending their fundamental right. He noted the active role of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh and other overseas Hindutva organisations in blocking legislation in the UK which would make caste discrimination illegal. Timms said: “I have been struck by the diversity of the people who are protesting against these measures in India in my constituency. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are all coming together  Claudia Webbe, MP for Leicester East (Labour) pledged to call on PM Modi to revoke the discriminatory CAA which violates human rights. She also spoke about the “unprecedented hate campaign” she faced in the UK election 2019. Pat McFadden, MP for Wolverhampton South East (Labour) expressed his concern about the way the Conservative Party had blocked the implementation of legislation outlawing caste discrimination in the UK, under pressure from pro-Hindutva organisations. Several of the MPs said that they would table an Early Day Motion in parliament calling for the CAA and NRC,NPR to be discussed in parliament. January 25 will see a National Demonstration Against Fascism in India on the eve of Republic Day which brings together many different diaspora organisations in solidarity with the resistance to the CAA, NRC and NPR. https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/602066-british-mps

19.                        Worldwide protests: Jan., 17, 2020:  Yet amid developments in recent weeks, Naqshband has been feeling differently about India, and is growing increasingly concerned for her family members — including her maternal grandmother — living in the southeastern state of Pondicherry. Last month, the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a bill which fast-tracks naturalization of non-Muslim refugees who came to India from neighboring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before 2015. While the bill covers Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians in the three countries, it excludes Muslims. The government says the bill will protect persecuted minorities, but critics say it is discriminatory and violates the country's secular constitution. On Wednesday, India's Supreme Court refused to put the CAA law on hold. The CAA bill follows government plans to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which requires every person in India to provide documentary evidence of their legal right to live in India. Muslims, who make up nearly 15 % of the 1.3 billion population, fear the move is aimed at marginalizing them. Opposition voices, meanwhile, say this is the latest measure in the government's agenda to create a Hindu nation.“I'm concerned about my family and the potential for uncontrolled violence," says Naqshband, who's based in Berlin. "I was always proud to be South Asian and Muslim, and in Indian culture, there's so much space for pluralism and diversity. But this is now being destroyed by fascism." Naqshband, an activist, academic and researcher, is among a growing number of German Indians opposed to the latest measures, such as Harpreet Cholia, President of the Refugee Council of the state of Hesse in Frankfurt am Main. "Not only are the recent developments discriminatory towards Muslims but the CAA is also a divisive law. Although its premise is to protect minority religions in majority Muslim countries, it does not protect all religious minorities. The category of citizenship cannot be be given on grounds of religion." Kerti P. is a master's student born and raised in Berlin to north Indian parents. She says the implications of the NRC register go beyond religious discrimination."This is also about class and gender. With the NRC citizens will have to prove their citizenship or will be rendered stateless, but most rural and poor people don't have those documents. Neither do many women, transgender or queer people. The question is, what is India going to become after the NRC bill is passed?" “The measures have triggered large-scale protests across India, amid reports of police violence in certain states. Videos have emerged showing police in the capital Delhi attacking students, while at least20 anti-CAA protesters were killed in the BJP-led northern state of Uttar Pradesh.The demonstrations have also spread outside the country to countries such as Germany, which in recent weeks has seen protests in a number of cities, including Hamburg, Munich and Frankfurt. Last Saturday, hundreds of predominantly Indian students marched from Berlin's Brandenburg Gate to the Indian Embassy. Further protests will be held this weekend to coincide with India's Republic Day on Sunday, while plans are underway for a rally at the UN's European headquarters in Geneva on February 1.  Ray, who didn't want to give her full name, is one of the student organizers who traveled to Berlin from Cologne. "People are angry with the government. So in that way, the reason for protesting outside of India is the same as protesting inside. But at the same time, we want to bring awareness to the international community. No government, however fascist, likes their activities to be on display on a world stage." Kerti says she is keen to see more solidarity among German Indians for these protests and the wider issue. "Growing up in Germany, we learned a lot about the rise of the Nazis and the questions in the room were always, how did it get so far? How could so many people be silent about this violence and discrimination towards a set of people? And right now, our generation is at this same point." Naqshband says she's deeply worried about the recent developments. "I recently read an article about a girl who was wearing a hijab in the same city where my Indian family lives. She was at a university awards ceremony attended by the Indian president and was reportedly asked to leave for wearing a hijab." That, says Naqshband, is something that hit home particularly for her. "It was a sad story to read and one that I could relate to as I used to wear a hijab in Germany. Muslim communities in Europe have been struggling so much after 9/11 and then for this type of hatred to reach India is just crazy. We are seeing an increase of nationalist and fascist sentiment in India, and none of us can tell which way this will go." https://www.dw.com/en/indian-diaspora-in-germany-deplores-fascist-citizenship-act/a-52134412

20.                        BSF Jawan: Jan.26, 2020: A BSF jawan, said to be an expert in handling explosives, was arrested in connection with the delivery of a parcel bomb at his camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Samba district early this month, official sources said on Wednesday. Samarpal, a native of Kolkata, was detained from his residence in Hubli area on January 10 and later arrested, they said. BSF jawan, said to be an expert in handling explosives, was arrested in connection with the delivery of a parcel bomb at his camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Samba district early this month, official sources said on Wednesday. "The jawan has been arrested for questioning and further investigation is on," Senior Superintendent of Police, Samba, Shakti Pathik, told PTI.He refused to divulge any further details. A parcel containing an improvised explosive device (IED) was delivered to the 173rd battalion headquarters of the Border Security Force (BSF) in Samba on January 5, the police had said. It was addressed to the second-in-command Gurvinder Singh, who got suspicious about it and informed the bomb disposal squad, they had said. According to the sources, a case was registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Explosive Substances Act and an investigation launched, which led to the detention of Samarpal. Sources said that Samarpal is an expert in handling explosive substances and is believed to have prepared the IED as he wanted to take revenge from his assistant commandant over some issue. Samarpal had left the parcel bomb at the main gate of the camp before leaving for home, they said. . https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/jammu-kashmir-jawan-arrested-delivering-parcel-bomb-bsf-camp-in-samba-1639281-2020-01-23?fbclid=IwAR1qmBP9ynxaJEgotztUeK_cRkQTKrgnJMGklsCl8iPnwt0T9sKlbMBgnSU

21.                        Boycott: Jan., 26, 2020: Activists from South Asian caste and religious minority communities are coming together to organize against Indian American businesses that support India’s move to strip its 200 million Muslims of their citizenship. On January 19, around 50 protesters gathered in Jersey City, New Jersey, where they marched against India’s polarizing Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which extends citizenship to non-Muslim refugees exclusively. The action helped mark the beginning of the “Stop Funding Genocide” protests, which are pushing back against Indian American support for the BJP. The actions have been co-organized by a number of groups advocating for marginalized South Asians, including Equality Labs, the South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI) and Stand With Kashmir. The uproar over the CAA, NRC and NPR coincides with ongoing activism against New Delhi’s de facto annexation of Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir last August. This helped create a basis for Dalit-Bahujan (an umbrella term for marginalized caste identities), Indian Muslim and Kashmiri organizers to collaborate. Soundarajan runs an advocacy group centering marginalized South Asian communities called Equality Labs. The organization has surveyed the significant impact of caste within Indian diaspora communities and how it enables upper-caste communities to exclude and discriminate against Dalit-Bahujans across the world. The survey also reported that one in three Dalit students in the U.S. report being discriminated during their education. Twenty-five percent of Dalits have faced physical or verbal assault due to their caste. One in two Dalits fear of having their caste “outed.” These impacts are compounded by the BJP’s commitment to suppressing activists who combat casteism within India, which is mirrored by upper-caste organizing in the diaspora. Thus, organizers and activists have urgently taken to the streets of Los Angeles; Decatur, Georgia; Chicago and Jersey City to confront Indian American casteism and Islamophobia head     for Modi  “We’re strategizing a boycott-divestment sort of initiative to target Indian organizations,” they explained. “What are economic targets for Indian people? Where can we also do a cultural and academic boycott? That information is forthcoming from Equality Labs, Stand With Kashmir and South Asia Solidarity Initiative within the next few months.” In the meantime, more Stop Funding Genocide protests have been planned for January 26. This time, mobilizations will take place in Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver and Minneapolis. “These mass demonstrations are really important for us to wield our power, our financial power and the voices that we get to have as people in the diaspora to say no to CAA, no NRC, no to the occupation of Kashmir,” said Fatima. https://truthout.org/articles/activists-plan-boycott-of-us-companies-backing-indias-anti-muslim-policies/

22.                         London protests: Jan., 27, 2020: the protesters, the vicinity of Downing Street—where the official residence of British Prime Minister is— today briefly presented the scene of Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh where hundreds of diaspora Indians representing various faiths and ethnicities assembled to march to the Indian High Commission to protest against the ignoble CAA and NRC. For more than an hour, speaker after speaker addressed the gathering, paused by chants of same slogans as raised by Shaheen Bagh protesters like ‘Ham kia chate? Azadi’; ‘Hai jan se piari Azadi’; ‘ham cheen ke leN ge Azadi’; ‘Tum kuch bhi karlo, Azadi’; ‘Modi ham se darta hai, ‘police ko samne lata hai’; ‘Jamia tum aage badho, ham tumhare saath haiN’; ‘AMU tum aage badho’, ‘ham tumhare saath haiN’; ‘Modi-Shah you can’t hide’; ‘NRC is genocide’.Holding India’s tricolour and placards and chanting slogans, they marched to India House through London’s iconic Trafalgar Square. As the march reached India House, the contained anger of the protesters expressed itself in more vigorous chants of anti-Hindutva and anti-BJP slogans. The marchers read and repeated the preamble of the Indian Constitution and dispersed after singing India’s national anthem. Those who addressed the gathering included Labour MP from Ilford South, Sam Tarry who expressed deep concern at the growing fascism in India under Narendra Modi and said that this situation must be causing lot of hurt to the souls of founding fathers of modern India including Mahatma Gandhi. The demonstration was organised by the human rights body South Asia Solidarity Group(SASG) and was supported by the Co-ordinating Committee of Malayali Muslims, SOAS India Society, Tamil People in the UK, Indian Workers Association (GB), Indian Muslim Federation (UK), Federation of Redbridge Muslim Organisations (FORMO), Kashmir Solidarity Movement, South Asian Students Against Fascism, Newham Muslim Alliance and Ghadar International. Five Labour MPs who were unable to attend the rally expressed their support in messages sent to SASG, saying: “Some will characterise these movements for democracy as ‘anti-India’. But this is part of a global fight against the far-right— whether in India, Hungary, Brazil, or here in the UK. In South Asia and the diaspora, we can only overcome the politics of division by banding together on what unites us: aspirations for a good standard of living, a decent wage, safety, and a world in which our children can breathe clean air,” said Nadia Whitthome (MP Nottingham East), UK's youngest MP. Some MPs have written letters to the British Foreign office and Indian High Commissioner in London expressing their concern on the continuously deteriorating political situation in India. In a special message, veteran anti-war activist and writer Tariq Ali said, ‘Thank you Modi for uniting Hindus and Muslims.’The organisers have also written anopen letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing, “our outrage at India's descent into open fascism under your government. Since 2014, we have watched the growing epidemic of mob-lynching, rapes and attacks on Muslims, Dalits, Christians and Adivasis, along with attacks on dissenters, human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and even judges who dare to speak out and uphold the truth about what is happening in India under your government.” The letter further said, “The events of the last six months have been particularly disturbing. First the revoking of Article 370,further militarisation of Kashmir , India’s only Muslim majority state, which was already the most highly militarised zone in the world, the imprisonment of its leaders, continued curfews, torture, including torture of minors, and the imposition of  a lockdown  on internet services while outsiders including your corporate friends such as Reliance’s Ambani buy up land in the Kashmir valley. This was followed by the handing over of the land on which the iconic Babri Masjid had stood for some 500 years, before it was demolished by RSS stormtroopers, to a Hindu right-wing organisation for the construction of a massive Ram temple.” Highlighting BJP-led government's historical anti-Muslim hatred, the letter further said, “We note with alarm that historically mass disenfranchisement of a targeted minority has been closely followed by ethnic cleansing and genocide.' The letter strongly condemned the CAA and NRC and urged Mr Modi to “to listen to the voices of mass democratic united protest in India and revoke the CAA and abolish the NRC and the NPR as a matter of urgency.” http://www.milligazette.com/news/16871-shaheen-bagh-slogans-resound-in-london  

23.                        Protests: Jan., 27, 2020: Thousands of protesters have gathered in a predominantly-Muslim neighbourhood in India's capital as the country celebrated Republic Day to commemorate the day its constitution came into effect  For 42 days now, demonstrators, mainly Muslim women, have blocked a highway in the southeastern part of the Indian capital to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), passed by Parliament last month.   On Sunday, as the clock struck midnight, protesters at Shaheen Bagh read out the preamble to the Indian constitution, which on this day in 1950, came into effect."We impress upon the government to understand the preamble of our constitution and in light of that announce a rollback of the controversial law. The law is in contravention of the constitution."  Similar "Save the constitution" events were held at other sites in New Delhi and in Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Lucknow and other cities. In the southern state of Kerala, hundreds of thousands of people formed a 620km (385-mile) human chain from Kasaragod in the north to Kaliyakkavilai in the south, demanding the CAA's withdrawal. The massive protest was organised by the governing Left Democratic Front party, with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan himself joining in the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram."The movement in Kerala is to resist attempts to undermine India's secular fabric, its plural ethos, federal structure and democratic values," politician S Ramachandran Pillai, who flagged off the protest at Kasargod, told Al Jazeera. Pillai said the human chain was one of the largest mass mobilisations ever in Kerala. "The central government will be forced to withdraw [the citizenship law]," he said. In the eastern state of West Bengal, thousands in the capital Kolkata also formed an 11km (seven-mile) human chain. The protest in Kolkata was organised by the United Interfaith Foundation India, a group comprising leaders of different religious communities in the state. "CAA, NRC and NPR are inherently discriminatory. The human chain today is a message to everyone in power that we Indians are all together in this fight," he said. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/india-soul-protests-mark-republic-day-celebrations-200126140155387.html

24.                        EU: Jan., 27, 2020: The European Union Parliament is set to debate and vote on a scathing resolution against India’s annexation of occupied Kashmir in clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and the country’s enforcement of new citizenship laws which have been widely criticised fordiscriminating against Muslims. The resolution, which has been drafted and supported by lawmakers from the Renew Group, has called on the European Union and its member states “to promote the implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir”. Condemning the “unilateral changes made to the status of Kashmir by India”, the draft resolution noted that India has never implemented UN “Security Council resolutions requiring a referendum allowing all Kashmiris to determine the future status of Kashmir”.  It also viewed with concern the rise in tensions between Pakistan and India – “both being nuclear weapons states” – which it said were “fuelled by the controversial decisions of the Government of India on Kashmir and citizenship”.Urging India to repeal the “discriminatory amendments” to its citizenship law, the draft resolution says the new law “violates India’s international obligations to prevent the deprivation of citizenship on the basis of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin as enshrined in the ICCPR and other human rights treaties.” Noting that the new law has “encouraged” violence both from the police and pro-government groups, which “are clear breaches of the human rights of residents of India and its neighbouring countries”, the resolution urges the government of India “to immediately engage in peaceful dialogue with various sections of the population” and “to ensure that security forces comply with the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials”.The resolution also mentions the violence that ensued at the Jawaharlal Nehru University earlier this month, referring to the university as a “a leading location for students protesting against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC)” and where “police witnessed the attack but refused to control and arrest the mob”.“According to the Indian Constitution, India is a sovereign secular democratic republic and including religion as a criterion for citizenship is therefore fundamentally unconstitutional,” reads the resolution, which will be debated in the parliament on January 29, according to the plenary schedule available on the EU Parliament’s website. The resolution, which will be put up for voting on January 30, says the CAA “sets a dangerous precedent and represents an intensification of the [Indian] Government’s Hindu nationalist agenda”, adding that “it is difficult to view the CAA in isolation, as both the amendments and the NRC could deprive minorities of their citizenship of India” while “only Muslims excluded from the NRC will have difficulty winning their cases at foreign tribunals”.  https://www.dawn.com/news/1530682/eu-parliament-to-vote-on-scathing-resolution-against-india

25.                        Republic day protests in USA amd UK: Jan., 28, 2020:  India’s 71st Republic Day was marked by rallies held across cities in the United States and London in United Kingdom, to protest against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CA), calling for protecting the Constitution of India that does not discriminate citizenship on the basis of religion. In the US, a broad coalition of Indian Americans and US-based civil rights organisations and activists organised huge rallies in multiple cities to demand repeal of CAA by the Indian government. “The law is blatantly undemocratic, unconstitutional and divisive in both letter and spirit,” said a joint release issued on Sunday.“Protesters are demanding an end to India's continued repression of minorities and are urging the US Government to impose sanctions on India's Home Minister Amit Shah, as recommended by the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF),” the release added. In London, over 2,000 people from diverse and multi-faith Indian communities demonstrated against the “fascist” policies of the Narendra Modi government on Saturday, January 25, the eve of India's Republic Day, according to a release by South Asia Solidarity Group (SASG), an umbrella of various disapora organisations in the UK. At a rally outside 10 Downing Street, they protesters also called for repeal CAA, which “undermines India's secular Constitution,  and the abolition of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR), which in conjunction with the CAA open the way for selective mass disenfranchisement of India's Muslim population and ethnic cleansing,”, said a release by SASG. The rallyists also expressed solidarity with the massive protests underway across India, led by women and youth. Those who took part in the London rally included the SOAS India Society and South Asian Students Against Fascism, along with Brazilian anti-fascists marching from an earlier protest at the Brazilian Embassy, against the Modi government’s invitation to Jair Bolsonaro as the chief guest at India’s Republic Day. The demonstration in London was part of a global two-day action against India's new, “discriminatory and unconstitutional laws and other measures to change the basis of Indian citizenship”, the release said. “As the Modi regime takes a massive step toward ethnic cleansing of Muslims, we, in the diaspora, stand with the united mass resistance led by women and students which is spreading across India in the face of unspeakable violence from the police and right-wing gangs sponsored by the government. This protest exposes once and for all the myth that Modi can rely on unquestioning support from the diaspora,” Sarbjit Johal of SASG was quoted as saying. Among the groups that took part in the rally were South Asia Solidarity Group, CasteWatch UK, Co-ordinating Committee of Malayali Muslims, SOAS India Society, Tamil People in the UK, Indian Workers Association (GB), Indian Muslim Federation(UK), Federation of Redbridge Muslim Organisations (FORMO), Kashmir Solidarity Movement, South Asian Students Against Fascism , Newham Muslim Alliance; Ghadar International, and others In the US, the protests under the banner of "Coalition to Stop Genocide," which includes organisations, such as Indian American Muslim Council, Black Lives Matter, Jewish Voice for Peace, Equality Labs, and Hindus for Human Rights, among others. "This largest ever rally of Indian Americans represents an extension of the massive unrest in India against the ruling Hindu nationalist government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its relentless attacks against India's secular Constitution," Ahsan Khan, President of IAMC, was quoted in the release. Stefan Shaw of Jewish Voice for Peace was quoted as saying that: “The CAA is an attempt to make an exception of Muslims and to strip them of their rights," adding that “As we have opposed Jewish exceptionalism in Israel, we oppose Hindu exceptionalism in India,”https://www.newsclick.in/indian-diaspora-rally-US-UK-R-day-protest-CAA-protect-constitution?fbclid=IwAR0woXPsz-uiGJjzSpM51ZefMELOBzx_r4JPRe9lJJPUdDktPqwusuX-ym8

26.                        International protest: Jan., 28, 2020:   demonstrations across major cities of the world, including London, Washington, New York, Cape Town, Munich, Warsaw..Campuses have joined in with the list including students from Universities in Poland, US, UK, Finland to name just a few with the numbers increasing from ones and twos to the hundreds. Media reports quote Indians abroad expressing solidarity with the protests in India, with CAA becoming a major point of controversy. Republic Day not only say lakhs gathering at Shaheen Bagh and 70 lakhs participating in a human chain in Kerala, but found an echo in street demonstrations in world capitals as well. Interestingly, several students started an impromptu protest (see video) at the Jaipur Literary Festival with a large audience to join in some of the songs and slogans against CAA. The anti-CAA protests have had an impact on lawmakers over the last week. As many as 626 members of 751 European Union have moved six resolutions against CAA as well as the clampdown on Jammu and Kashmir.This follows 150 EU lawmakers who in a resolution have accused the government of India of "discriminating against, harassing and prosecuting national and religious minorities and silencing any opposition, human rights groups... and journalists critical of the government". The lawmakers urged EU to insist on a "strong human rights clause with an effective implementation and suspension mechanism" during any trade agreement.. This five page resolution is to be tabled during the plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels in a few days. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the EU summit in response to an earlier invitation. Several British MPs attended a meeting organized by Ambedkar International Mission (UK) and the South Asia Solidarity Group in the UK Parliament (House of Commons) in London last week on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register and the protests across India. The meeting was organised by Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham (Labour) where he said, “I have been struck by the diversity of the people who are protesting against these measures in India in my constituency. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are all coming together’. He stated that he has written to the UK Foreign Office urging it to take a stand and has also written to the Indian High Commission expressing his deep concern about the CAA-NRC-NPR and their impact. He also recounted that he was a frequent visitor to a Hindu temple in his constituency, but he was shocked when some of his Indian constituents told him that they had been told at the temple that they were ‘not allowed’ to vote Labour during the 2019 UK elections. Claudia Webbe, MP for Leicester East (Labour) pledged to call on PM Modi to revoke the discriminatory CAA which violates human rights. She also spoke about the ‘unprecedented hate campaign’ she faced in the UK election 2019. Despite this she was elected from her constituency which has a large Indian community. Pat McFadden, MP for Wolverhampton South East (Labour) expressed his concern about the way the Conservative Party had blocked the implementation of legislation outlawing caste discrimination in the UK, under pressure from pro-Hindutva organizations The meeting was also attended by John Hilary Head of International Liaison of the Labour Party. Several of the MPs said that they would table an Early Day Motion in Parliament calling for the CAA and NRC/NPR to be discussed in Parliament. Speakers included Amrit Wilson, lawyer Gautam Bhatia, Satpal Muman and others.  In Washington, while the Indian embassy carried out a formal ceremony on Republic Day, scores of Indian gathered outside the White House as part of a people call for ‘Day of Action’ across at least 30 cities in the US. Shouting ‘bharat mata ki jai’ and singing ‘sare jahan se accha’ the protesters marched from the White House to the Indian embassy demanding sanctions against India’s Home Minister Amit Shah. The embassy dismissed the protests with sources reiterating that the CAA was passed by Parliament. Shah has made it clear that there is no question of revoking CAA or for that matter the NPR and NRC. https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/9/18226/Protests-Across-the-World-Against-CAA

27.                        US Congress: Jan., 28, 2020: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Monday began testifying at a briefing on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at the US Congress. The Congressional briefing will discuss the executive and legislative actions for US Government and US Congress to ensure that CAA does not discriminate against any section of Indian society. The expert panel at the US Congress briefing includes Magsaysay awardee Sandeep Pandey, Amensty’s Franciscos Bencosme who had testified on Kashmir before the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Asia, Pacific and Non-proliferation on October 22, John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, who had testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the House of Representatives on November 14. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/amensty-uscirf-to-testify-at-us-congress-briefing-on-caa-31970

28.                        Convicts released: Jan., 29, 2020: India's top court on Tuesday released on bail at least 17 convicts jailed for life for taking part in an anti-Muslim pogrom, local media reported. The Supreme Court of India issued bail orders for the convicts who were found guilty for the 2002 Sardarpura massacre in which 33 Muslims were burned alive in the western province of Gujarat the country's apex court ruled to send the convicts in two groups to the neighboring central Madhya Pradesh province for "community service." At least 33 Muslims, including 22 women, were burned alive in Sardarpura on the night of Feb. 28, 2002, following the infamous Godhra train riots a day earlier. Some 59 people who were returning from Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh were killed in the incident.   https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/-india-convicts-of-anti-muslim-massacre-get-bail/1717029

29.                        Firing on protestors: Jan., 31, 2020: An unidentified man fired at a protest against India's new citizenship law near a university in Delhi on Thursday, wounding one person, witnesses said, the first such incident in the capital city during more than a month of demonstrations. Witnesses said the man holding a gun shouted slogans against the protesters near Jamia Millia Islamia University, before firing at them."The police stood nearby," Ahmed Zahir, a witness, told Reuters. The man challenged protesters as they started marching from the university to the mausoleum of India’s independence leader Mohandas Gandhi on his death anniversary, said Ahmed Azeem, a Jamia Millia Islamia University spokesman. A Reuters photograph showed the man, dressed in a black jacket and brandishing a single-barrel weapon, standing meters away from dozens of policemen deployed outside the university, where protesters had gathered for a march. Police said they had subsequently detained the gunman. The man’s name wasn’t released. As he was taken away by police, the man told reporters he was named “Ram Bhakt Gopal”. Ram Bhakt means a devotee of the Hindu god Rama. This week, India's junior finance minister Anurag Thakur encouraged supporters at a state election rally in New Delhi to chant slogans calling for traitors to be shot, drawing a reprimand from the country's  https://www.dawn.com/news/1531456/gunman-opens-fire-at-dehli-student-protest-against-indias-citizenship-law-1-wounded

Monthly update  4:  December 2019 : Muslims in India

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1.     India no country for Muslims: Dec., 5, 2019: Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti's daughter slammed the approval of the Citizenship Amendment Bill by the Union cabinet today, terming it as an indication that the country's BJP-led central government discriminates against those from the Muslim community. "India - No country for Muslims," a message posted through the Peoples Democratic Party chief's Twitter handle claimed, hours after the Union cabinet cleared the controversial bill for tabling in the parliament. As the Peoples Democratic Party chief has been in detention since August 5, when the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 was scrapped, her daughter Sana Iltija Javed operates her social media accounts. The legislation, which seeks to make it easier for minorities from neighbouring countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to obtain citizenship, has been accused by rights groups as well as opposition parties of being discriminatory towards Muslims. However, the centre has defended its decision, claiming that it is duty-bound to help "persecuted" minorities from surrounding countries  The Citizenship Amendment Bill aims to grant Indian citizenship to people from six communities - Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis -- who had migrated to India without valid travel papers or whose documents have expired. The bill amends a 1955 law to grant exemptions to illegal migrants from these six communities who reached on or before December 2014. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had justified the proposed legislation on Tuesday, saying that as the three neighbouring countries were essentially Islamic, their non-Muslim communities often found themselves subjected to religious persecution. https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/mehbooba-muftis-daughter-on-citizenship-bill-no-country-for-muslims-2143370

2.     Citizenship bill : Dec., 7, 2019: More than 1,000 students marched on Friday in India's northeast against a bill approved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to grant citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from India's three Muslim-majority neighbours. The marchers took to the streets of Gauhati, the Assam state capital, carrying placards opposing the bill that's likely to be introduced in Parliament next week for approval. A large number of migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan live in the state. Main opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday the bill was discriminatory as it aimed at excluding Muslim migrants. It will entitle only communities like Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians for India's citizenship. Critics have called the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) anti-Muslim, and some opposition parties have also pushed back, arguing citizenship cannot be granted on the basis of religion. https://www.dawn.com/news/1520810

3.     Fire: Dec., 9, 2109: A fire broke out at a factory in India's capital New Delhi early on Sunday morning. At least 43 people have been reported dead. Most of the victims were Muslim migrant workers who came from the Eastern state of Bihar, the AP reports, earning as little as $2.10 a day making a variety of garments. The BBC reports that about 100 people were sleeping in the factory when the fire broke out.  https://www.npr.org/2019/12/08/786066785/43-dead-in-extremely-horrific-fire-at-new-delhi-factory

4.     Citizenship bill: Dec., 12, 2019: India's parliament on Wednesday passed a contentious bill that seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants from some countries, as hundreds of troops were deployed in the northeast which has been hit by violent protests. The bill will let the Indian government grant citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants who entered India from three neighbouring countries before 2015 — but not if they are Muslim. The legislation was passed 125-105 by the upper house, after the lower house voted in support of it just after midnight on Tuesday. It will be sent to the president to be signed into law, with his approval seen as a formality.  Opponents of the legislation have threatened to challenge it in the Supreme Court, saying it violates the principles of equality and secularism enshrined in the constitution. For Islamic groups, the opposition, rights groups and others this is part of Modi's Hindu-nationalist agenda to marginalise India's 200 million Muslims — something he denies. Besides stoking concern among Muslims, the proposed changes have also led to demonstrations in the northeastern states where residents are unhappy about an influx of Hindus from neighbouring Bangladesh who stand to gain citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB). In a third day of protests in the far-flung region, several hundred troops were deployed in Tripura state and in Guwahati, Assam's biggest city, a senior army official said. Police fired tear gas in different parts of Guwahati as several thousand demonstrators attempted to barge past security barriers to converge on the adjoining state capital Dispur. Tripura and parts of Assam suspended mobile internet services, with Assam wanting to avoid social media posts that could “inflame passions”. Gatherings of more than four people were banned for 24 hours. ,” local activist Akhil Gogoi said ahead of the upper house vote. Derek O'Brien, an opposition lawmaker in the upper house, on Wednesday said the legislation bore an “eerie similarity” to Nazi laws against Jews in 1930s Germany. “In 1935 there were citizenship laws to protect people with German blood ... today we have a faulty bill that wants to define who true Indian citizens are,” he said. Many Muslims in India say they have been made to feel like second-class citizens since Modi stormed to power in 2014. Several cities perceived to have Islamic-sounding names have been renamed, while some school textbooks have been altered to downplay Muslims' contributions to India In August, Modi's administration rescinded the partial autonomy of Muslim-majority occupied Kashmir and split it into two. A citizens' register in Assam finalised this year left 1.9 million people, many of them Muslims, facing possible statelessness, detention camps and even deportation. Modi's government has said it intends to replicate the register nationwide with the aim of removing all “infiltrators” by 2024. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom on Monday termed the bill as a “dangerous turn in the wrong direction”. https://www.dawn.com/news/1521685/india-passes-contentious-citizenship-bill-excluding-muslims-amid-violent-protests

5.     CAB: Dec., 13, 2019: India is home to 200 million Muslims. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they have faced mounting threats to their status in the majority-Hindu country. And on Wednesday, they were walloped by a new worrisome development: The upper house of India’s Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB).The legislation turns religion into a means of deciding whom to treat as an illegal immigrant — and whom to fast-track for citizenship. At first glance, the bill may seem like a laudable effort to protect persecuted minorities. It says Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians who came to India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan won’t be treated as illegal. They’ll have a clear path to citizenship.But one major group has been left out: Muslims.That’s no coincidence.The CAB is closely linked with another contentious document: India’s National Register of Citizens (NRC). That citizenship list is part of the government’s effort to identify and weed out people it claims are illegal immigrants in the northeastern state of Assam. India says many Muslims whose families originally came from neighboring Bangladesh are not rightful citizens, even though they’ve lived in Assam for decades. When the NRC was published in August, around 2 million people — many of them Muslims, some of them Hindus — found that their names were not on it. They were told they had a limited time in which to prove that they are, in fact, citizens. Otherwise, they can be rounded up into massive new detention camps and, ultimately, deported. So far, this measure affects potentially 2 million people, not all 200 million Muslims in India. However, Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said it plans to extend the NRC process across the country. Muslims have faced increasing discrimination and violence over the past few years under Modi’s BJP. But the one-two punch of the NRC followed by the CAB takes this to a new level. The country is beginning to look less like a secular democracy and more like a Hindu nationalist state. If the Indian government proceeds with its plan, in a worst-case scenario we could be looking at the biggest refugee crisis on the planet. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom have all warned that this could soon turn into a humanitarian disaster of horrifying proportions. The CAB will grant citizenship to a host of religious minorities who fled three nearby countries where they may have faced persecution — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan — before 2015. But Muslims will get no such protection. In fact, this bill is likely to increase the suffering of many Muslims and is discriminatory on its face, as some of the BJP’s political opposition and several human rights advocates in India have noted.Shashi Tharoor, whose Congress party opposes the CAB, dubbed it “fundamentally unconstitutional.” Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit priest and human rights advocate, said in an emailed statement that by “assuring citizenship to all undocumented persons except those of the Muslim faith, the CAB risks ... destroying the secular and democratic tenets of our revered Constitution.” India’s Constitution guarantees everyone equality under the law. Religion is not a criterion for citizenship eligibility, a decision that goes all the way back to the 1940s, when India was founded as a secular state with special protections for minorities like Muslims. Harsh Mander, a noted rights advocate of Sikh origins, wrote that the CAB represents “the gravest threat to India’s secular democratic Constitution since India became a republic.” He said that if the bill becomes law, he’ll declare himself a Muslim out of solidarity. Meanwhile, he’s also calling for Indians to fight the CAB with a nationwide civil disobedience movement. Already, protests are underway. In Assam’s capital, authorities have shut down the internet and implemented a curfew. The New York Times reported: The Indian Army was deployed in the northeastern states of Assam and Tripura as protests grew bigger and more violent. The police were already battling demonstrators over the past few days with water cannons and tear gas. More than 1,000 protesters gathered in the heart of Assam’s commercial capital, Guwahati, yelling: “Go Back Modi!” In other areas, angry men stomped on effigies of Mr. Modi. Crowds set fire to tires and blocked thoroughfares with trees. “The idea of India that emerged from the independence movement,” said a letter signed by more than 1,000 Indian intellectuals, “is that of a country that aspires to treat people of all faiths equally.” But this bill, the intellectuals said, is “a radical break with this history” and will “greatly strain the pluralistic fabric of the country.” Meanwhile, international human rights organizations are up in arms. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom said India is taking a “dangerous turn in the wrong direction,” adding that the US should weigh sanctions against India if it enshrines the bill in law. India is known as the largest democracy in the world. But its current government is leading it away from democratic norms.Modi champions a hardline brand of Hindu nationalism known as Hindutva, which aims to define Indian culture in terms of Hindu history and values and which promotes an exclusionary attitude toward Muslims. UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet recently expressed concerns over  increasing harassment and targeting of minorities — in particular, Muslims.” Under Modi, vigilante Hindus have increasingly perpetrated hate crimes against Muslims, sometimes in an effort to scare their communities into moving away, other times to punish them for selling beef (cows are considered sacred in Hinduism). And this summer, Modi erased the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, which had previously enjoyed considerable autonomy over its own affairs.Muslims comprise approximately 14 percent of the national population. And more than twice that in Assam state. In the 2019 Indian election, one of Modi’s central campaign promises was that he’d get the NRC in shape and deal with the Muslim migrants in Assam once and for all. Other BJP members have used dehumanizing language to describe the Muslims there.“These infiltrators are eating away at our country like termites,” BJP president and home minister Amit Shah said at an April rally. “The NRC is our means of removing them.” Shah has openly said the goal is to deport those who are deemed illegal immigrants. Last month, Shah said the government will conduct another count of citizens — this time nationwide. This could be used to clamp down on Muslims throughout India, potentially triggering a huge humanitarian disaster. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/12/12/21010975/india-muslim-citizenship-bill-national-register

6.     Protests: Dec., 14, 2019: Thousands took to the streets of Assam’s capital Guwahati for the third day, following the death of two protesters who were caught in police fire on Thursday. The north-eastern state has been the epicentre of the protests against the citizenship amendment bill (CAB). A 48-hour block on both mobile and broadband internet was implemented, while schools were closed and roads blocked off, as demonstrators set fire to cars and tyres and a 10pm curfew was imposed on the north-east city.  The controversial bill, which was signed into law at midnight on Thursday, has stirred up opposition in Assam and across the country. Under to the new legislation, tens of thousands of Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan will be allowed to claim Indian citizenship. The same will not apply for Muslims. In Delhi, protests turned violent after hundreds of students demonstrating at Jamia Millia Islamia university were fired at with teargas by police with batons, who tried to push the crowds back with batons. Several students were taken to hospital with injuries while over 50 protesters were detained. Protesters set fire to placards in Amritsar and other rallies were held in Kolkata, Kerala and Gujarat, the home state of the prime minister, Narendra Modi. There was also unrest in West Bengal, with several trains vandalised. The state is due to be the first where a new national register of citizens (NRC) is due to be rolled out, which will require citizens to provide documents to prove they are not illegal immigrants. Following the passing of CAB into law, it is feared that only Muslims will be targeted by the exercise and be detained in their thousands. However West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, has vowed that she will not allow CAB to be rolled out in Assam and announced state-wide protests. Over 20 activists were also arrested in Mumbai for protesting the bill.The unrest led the Japanese prime minister, Shinzō Abe, to cancel a planned visit to India from Sunday for a summit with Modi. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/13/violent-clashes-continue-in-delhi-over-new-citizenship-bill

7.     Jamia Millia Protests: Dec., 16, 2019: The Indian government led by the Bhartiya Janta Party under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently passed a Citizenship Amendment Bill that allows only non-Muslim migrants from its Muslim majority neighboring countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan) to become Indian citizens. Hundreds of student’s protesters have clashed with the police in the Indian capital of Delhi, where police have entered a prominent university in an effort to clamp down on protesters opposing a controversial new law on migrants. Several leading Indian journalists claimed that the police entered the university campus, include the library. On Sunday, students from the prestigious Jamia Millia Islamia university held a protest, which turned violent. Video clippings shared on social media indicate that the Indian police fired tear gas into the library and attacked students, who were merely studying in the library.https://www.ibtimes.sg/video-hong-kong-like-protest-students-police-clash-india-over-new-migrant-law-36044

8.     Social Media: Dec., 16, 2019: After Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s India-born head Sundar Pichai has come out in support of Muslims saying it is important to have a diverse mix of voices and backgrounds to build a company or leading a country.   https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/must-support-muslims-and-other-minorities-google-ceo-sundar-pichai/articleshow/50150762.cms?utm_source%3Dfacebook_web%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_campaign%3Dsocialsharebuttons

9.     Protests: Dec., 17, 2019: Fresh protests rocked India on Monday as anger grew over new citizenship legislation slammed as anti-Muslim, with six people dead in the northeast and up to 100 reported injured in New Delhi.  In the country's northeast, however, even allowing non-Muslims citizenship is opposed by many locals who fear their culture is threatened by Bengali-speaking Hindus On Sunday night in Delhi, police with batons fired tear gas and charged protesting students before storming a university. On Monday fresh protests took place in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Lucknow, where hundreds of students — most of them Muslims, television pictures indicated — tried to storm a police station, hurling volleys of stones at officers cowering behind a wall. In the east in Kolkata, capital of West Bengal, thousands gathered for a major demonstration called by state premier Mamata Banerjee, a firebrand opponent of Modi. In recent days empty trains were torched there and on Monday internet access remained suspended. In Kerala in the south, another state whose government refuses to implement the citizenship law, several hundred people also protested. Kerala's finance minister Thomas Isaac tweeted: “United action of all secular force is the need of the hour.”  Protests were reported in Mumbai, West Bengal, Aligarh, Hyderabad, Patna and Raipur over the weekend. Authorities in northern Uttar Pradesh, meanwhile, have cut internet access in western parts of the state following demonstrations in Aligarh, home to a large university and a sizeable Muslim population. The main epicentre of the protests has been in India's far-flung northeastern states, long a seething and violent melting pot of ethnic tensions. There, where protesters are mostly Hindu, late last week four people died from gunshot wounds, one in a fire and a sixth beaten to death. On Sunday night in Assam state — following days of rioting and clashes with police — around 6,000 people protested on Sunday evening, with no major incidents reported.  The UN human rights office said last week it was concerned the law “would appear to undermine the commitment to equality before the law enshrined in India's constitution”, while Washington and the European Union have also expressed concern.   “The protest is getting international attention and also spreading to different parts of the country. This certainly will add pressure on the regime when the economy has failed,” Swain told AFP. https://www.dawn.com/news/1522589/india-protests-rage-over-anti-muslim-law-as-hundreds-of-students-take-to-the-streets

10.                        Delhi Police: Dec., 17, 2019: Nobody anticipated what happened inside our Jamia Millia Islamia campus yesterday (Dec. 15). In the morning, we approached the Delhi police for permission for a protest march in the Batla House community near our university, and they allowed us to use a particular lane. Around noon, we marched, raised slogans, and put across our point that the Citizenship Amendment Act is discriminatory. We sat on the road and raised slogans. I want to emphasise, all this was peaceful. The Delhi police personnel were positioned only kilometres away from us. After an hour or so, we saw residents of Jamia Nagar and other nearby areas join us. They marched towards Surya hotel in New Friends Colony, a short distance from Batla House. We Jamia Millia students then appealed to our groups to stay put and not join the locals. We continued to protest at the spot we had permission for. Around 2pm, the students of Jamia Millia’s Faculty of Law were to join us and then we were to march peacefully towards the Delhi police headquarters. It was decided there won’t be any sloganeering anymore. However, before that could happen, the locals, who had entered New Friends Colony, turned violent.  Soon, news began pouring in that they were pelting stones at parked cars and moving buses and damaging property. We got to know that they’d also torched a bike. What followed was unbelievable. We saw police personnel light a fire from the torched bike and burn the buses. We know the Delhi police is responsible for it. Some students even recorded the entire incident on their cell phones. These videos confirm there wasn’t a single student near the torched buses, it was just the officers and constables of the Delhi police. Now I want to ask those blaming us students for the violence, did we torch the buses sitting inside our homes or from inside the campus? Moreover, as soon as the students received news of violence, we called off our protests and returned to the university. When we returned, everyone made sure that outsiders don’t enter the campus. We knew (or that’s what we thought) that the police weren’t inside the university, so the miscreants could possibly enter. We were extra cautious. The security guards at the gates checked the identity cards of the returning protesters, entering the campus. It was only us, the students. We thought the worst was behind us. We were angry. To analyse what had happened, we met at the canteen; some of us hadn’t eaten since morning. A few minutes after we settled down, a tear-gas shell was fired inside our canteen from the direction of our library. The entire campus was soon taken over by the police. Four or five more tear-gas shells were fired. The police harassed the security guards and forced them to open the university’s gates. Now, the police were inside the campus. We were scared, really scared. Out of fear, some of us ran towards the library. The police then bombed the reading hall with more tear-gas shells. Some students were caught by the police and told they would be escorted to their hostels safely. The police said they were only looking for “outsiders.” Later, we heard gunshots. I have recorded some videos of the police firing inside the campus. We got to know that the students supposedly being taken to their hostel rooms were being detained and beaten up badly. The police took them somewhere, we think it’s Kalkaji police station, but we are not sure. When we asked the police, they hurled abuses at us. I, along with my friends, was inside the campus, but when the police began firing gunshots, we escaped through the gate near Batla House.  Chief proctor Waseem Ahmed Khan confirmed that the police did not have permission to enter Jamia. I can guarantee their (police’s) intention wasn’t to catch outsiders; they wanted to fuel communal tensions. Let me tell you what some of the personnel were saying while beating us up: “Maaro inko, ye katwe hai” (Thrash them, these circumcised). I heard them saying this many times. They opened fire at the campus, damaged the mosques, and beat up students. Please, remind them if you can that we are students, not terrorists. https://qz.com/india/1768876/i-saw-delhi-police-target-jamia-millia-islamias-muslim-students/

11.                        Protests: Dec., 18, 2019: Twenty-one people were injured when a protest at Seelampur in east Delhi against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the police action against students at Jamia Millia Islamia University in the capital turned violent on Tuesday “A total of 21 persons sustained injuries, including 15 security personnel and six members of the public. The injured include three Rapid Action Force officials, 12 Delhi  police officials and six members of the public,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Eastern Range) Alok Kumar said  Some videos, thought to be of the incident and shot by the locals, showed the police beating the protesters with lathis.  Sunday’s clashes; none of them was a student. All have criminal backgrounds, and were identified from CCTV footage. Multiple protesters said the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens are against Muslims. They said they will continue to raise their voice against them. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/21-hurt-as-protesters-clash-with-police-in-delhi/article30333803.ece?homepage=true

12.                        Protests: Dec., 20, 2019: Two protesters were killed in police firing on Thursday in Mangaluru while one died of gunshot wounds in Lucknow as the agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Act, brewing since last week flared up nationwide. Huge crowds came out on to the streets of cities and towns that were so far untouched by the unrest. Parts of UP, including  Lucknow, and Mangaluru in Karnataka witnessed the day's most violent proteats.  https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/2-die-in-mangaluru-1-in-lucknow-as-anti-caa-stir-spreads-across-india/articleshow/72893831.cms

13.                        Indians protest against bill: Dec., 21, 2019: Indians are defying bans on assembly in cities nationwide as anger swells against a citizenship law seen as discriminatory against Muslims, following days of protests and clashes that have left nine dead. Two people died of injuries suffered in violent protests in the southern Indian city of Mangalore, on Thursday, according to hospital officials. Shah said police fired their weapons after some 200 demonstrators refused to stop their march. Stone-throwing protesters clashed with police and set fire to vehicles in Lucknow, where orders prohibiting gatherings of more than five people are in place. Hundreds of demonstrators were detained on Thursday in the Indian capital of New Delhi and the southern IT hub of Bengaluru, where a leading historian was among those taken away by the police. Two major Indian telecom firms, Vodafone and Airtel, on Thursday said they have cut mobile services in parts of New Delhi on government orders. Fourteen Delhi metro stations were shut including one near police headquarters, besieged by protesters earlier this week, as some roads into the megacity were blocked, causing immense traffic jams  Critics say it is further proof that Modi, emboldened by a resounding election victory this year, is moving quickly to reshape India as a Hindu nation and weaken its secular foundations. Reporting from New Delhi, Al Jazeera's Sohail Rahman said the overwhelming participation of non-Muslims in the nationwide protests "has surprised the government"."I think the government was completely unprepared for the anger that this particular passage of the law was going to present, because Muslim communities have kept pretty quiet over the issues of triple divorce and Kashmir's autonomy," he said. "This law is deemed to be something that strikes the heart of the constitution about everybody's liberty." Demonstrators on Thursday ignored the bans on assembly including in New Delhi and Hyderabad where television pictures showed police dragging and carrying demonstrators away as they brandished placards and chanted slogans.  One protester, Kawalpreet Kaur, who according to her Twitter profile is the Delhi president of All India Student's Association, posted that police had filled 14 buses with detainees at the Red Fort landmark. "But more and more people are pouring in, too many to be detained," she added. Al Jazeera's Rahman said police barricaded and blocked the road around the Mughal-era fort, whose iconic grounds have seen some of India's biggest protests. "Some of them got through in the morning, but they were later uniformly arrested and put on buses," he said. In Bengaluru, those detained included internationally renowned historian Ramachandra Guha while in the northern state of Bihar, protesters blocked several railway stations and national highways. "I am protesting non-violently, but look, they are stopping us," said Guha.   Seventeen left-wing parties in the eastern state of West Bengal, long a hotbed of political violence, were due to rally in Kolkata later. In the financial and entertainment capital Mumbai, Bollywood stars were expected to join a protest largely organised by students and young professionals on Thursday afternoon.Actor-director Farhan Akhtar tweeted on Wednesday that the "time to protest on social media alone is over."  During the past week of unrest, police fired tear gas into crowds and have been accused of beating protesters at various places, including women and students, heightening the anger. Police fired shots in the air in a Muslim-dominated part of the capital to repel thousands of demonstrators throwing stones and glass bottles, demanding the law be withdrawn. New Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia university and Uttar Pradesh state's Aligarh Muslim University, 130km (81 miles) from the capital, were stormed by police on Sunday night, leaving more than 200 students injured. "This government wants to turn us into second-class citizens," said 70-year old Fasiur Rehman, accusing Modi's administration of singling out Muslims, as several hundred protesters around him in New Delhi raised slogans, held up banners, and waved the Indian flag. The UN secretary-general's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday the global body was "concerned about the violence and alleged use of excessive force by security forces that we've seen that have been taking place". The United States's State Department urged New Delhi to "protect the rights of its religious minorities in keeping with India's constitution and democratic values". At a news conference with his Indian counterpart on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington cares deeply about protecting religious rights everywhere but gave a muted answer on the issue.  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/protests-rage-india-citizenship-law-restrictions-191219033044980.html

14.                        New York Times: Dec., 21, 2019: India’s new citizenship law aims to marginalise Muslims and turn India into a homeland for Hindus, says a New York Times editorial published on Thursday. The editorial also condemns India’s Aug 5 decision to illegally merge Kashmir with the union and to turn nearly two million Muslims in Assam into a stateless crowd. “The law, as India’s 200 million Muslims have correctly surmised, has nothing to do with helping migrants and everything to do with the campaign by Mr Modi and his home minister, Amit Shah, to marginalise Muslims and turn India into a homeland for Hindus, who comprise about 80 per cent of the population of 1.3 billion,” the newspaper wrote. It noted that last summer, the Modi government “abruptly stripped statehood and autonomy from India’s only Muslim-majority state, Kashmir, arresting many of its leaders and shutting down the internet.” Also in August, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “aggressively escalated a program of citizenship tests in the northeastern state of Assam, leaving nearly two million people, many of them Muslims, potentially stateless,” NYT added. The newspaper noted that Mr Modi has vowed to extend the process, “which requires Indians to prove they’re Indian, to the entire country and is building large new detention centers for those who can’t”. The newspaper noted that the new law offers accelerated citizenship to members of the Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Parsee and Jain religions — but not to Muslims. And the only neighbouring countries named in the law are Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, all majority Muslim. “The not-so-hidden message is that … Muslims from such countries cannot be refugees — even people like the Rohingya, some of whom have reached India after fleeing to Bangladesh from brutal repression in Myanmar,” NYT added. The newspaper also noted that Mr Shah “has taken to demonizing the primary target of the dragnets, Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, whom he refers to as termites”. Noting that the citizenship law has provoked furious protests across India, the newspaper adds: “The government has also shut down the internet in several regions, a tactic against dissent used by India more than any other authoritarian-leaning government in the world, claiming it is necessary to prevent violence and false rumors.” “Kashmir has been offline since August, and India is by far the world’s leader in the number of internet shutdowns.” The newspaper notes that since he took office in 2014, Mr Modi has actively worked to change India, “even rewriting history books to exclude Muslim rulers — who, among other things, built the Taj Mahal — and changing official place names to Hindu from Muslim. Hindu mobs that lynch Muslims are rarely punished.”NYT points out that some non-Muslim Indian liberals, including members of the once-dominant Congress Party, have joined in the protests against the law, which has also drawn sharp criticism from human rights groups and governments.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1523301/top-american-newspaper-censures-india-over-citizenship-law

15.                        Sikhs at UN: Dec., 21, 2019: The Dal Khalsa has reached out to the UN about the volatile developments that spell an anarchic situation for minorities in India. Kashmir Babri mosque also cited as evidence   https://sikhsiyasat.net/2019/12/20/sikh-body-knocks-at-un-door-over-developing-crisis-in-indian-subcontinent-says-minorities-are-in-danger/

16.                        Mahathir: Dec., 22, 2019: Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has criticised India's new citizenship law, which is seen as discriminatory against Muslims and has sparked deadly protests across the South Asian country. Speaking on the sidelines of the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 on Friday, Mahathir questioned the "necessity" of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), when Indians have "lived together for 70 years"."People are dying because of this law. Why is there a necessity to do this when all the while, for 70 years, they have lived together as citizens without any problem?" he asked. The CAA makes it easier for "persecuted" minorities from three neighbouring countries to get citizenship but not if they are Muslims. "I am sorry to see that India, which claims to be a secular state now is taking action to deprive some Muslims of their citizenship," said the 94-year-old leader. "If we do that here, I do not know what will happen. There will be chaos and instability, and everybody will suffer." Mahathir's comments came amid deadly protests in India over the CAA, in which at least 20 people have been killed so far, including nearly a dozen on Friday.  The United Nations has called the CAA "fundamentally discriminatory" while the United States's State Department has urged India to "protect the rights of its religious minorities". Meanwhile, tensions prevailed throughout the country as authorities suspended internet and banned public gatherings in some regions. In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, at least 11 people died on Friday while another death was reported on Saturday. India's capital New Delhi witnessed street battles on Friday evening with police firing a water cannon, baton-charging protesters and arresting dozens of people. Thousands of people in a Muslim-dominated district of the capital marched after Friday prayers, some carrying a huge Indian flag, raising slogans against the Modi government. More protests continue to be organised in various Indian cities.  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/modi-summons-ministers-india-protests-death-toll-increases-191221063611978.html

17.                        CAIR: Dec., 23, 2019: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, condemned India’s adoption of a citizenship law that discriminates against the naturalization of Muslim immigrants from neighboring countries. CAIR also called on the House of Representatives to immediately adopt H.R. 745, a resolution urging the Indian government to respect the human rights of all people, and for the U.S. government to sanction key Indian government leaders responsible for enacting and implementing the anti-Muslim policy. The Indian state of Assam has already stripped at least 1.9 million Indians of their citizenship and is constructing prison camps to detain these now stateless people — and expelled all international journalists from the state.“Our government must follow the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and sanction ‘principal leadership’ in the Indian government responsible for this discriminatory anti-Muslim citizenship law,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “Congress must also send a clear message to Indian Prime Minister Modi that we will not tolerate the state persecution of any minority in India, including Muslims.”Awad added: “We are getting close to a situation in which the Indian government will round up Indian Muslim citizens and Muslim immigrants and indefinitely detain them in state run concentration camps – a human rights disaster in the making that must be avoided through immediate diplomacy and civil action.”CAIR is also calling on all Americans to urge their U.S. House representative to co-sponsor and support the adoption of a bipartisan resolution by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Steve Watkins (R-KA) — House Resolution 745 — titled: “Urging the Republic of India to end the restrictions on communications and mass detentions in Jammu and Kashmir as swiftly as possible and preserve religious freedom for all residents.” CAIR notes that Congresswoman Jayapal is the first Indian-American woman elected to Congress. The resolution in part urges the government of India to reject arbitrary detention, use of excessive force against civilians, and suppression of peaceful expression of dissent as proportional responses to security challenges – and ensure that any actions taken in pursuit of legitimate security priorities respect the human rights of all people and adhere to international human rights law. Since the passage of CAA bill, many political parties, human rights organizations and Indian Muslim organizations have opposed the CAA in democratic and peaceful ways, including marches, statements and hunger strikes. Students of two universities, Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), based in New Delhi, and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), based in Aligarh, have been protesting the adoption of the CAA. There have been numerous reports of excessive force by Indian Police with eight killed and more than 1,200 protestors across the county detained. The Indian government has now banned protests and cut internet in parts of the nation’s capital Delhi and throughout the states of Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. In October, CAIR submitted a written statement to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation’s hearing on “Human Rights in South Asia: Views from the State Department and the Region.” CAIR’s statement focuses on Kashmir and the Indian government’s revocation of that region’s protected status and accompanying human rights abuses. The hearing was convened by Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). . https://indianewengland.com/2019/12/the-council-on-american-islamic-relations-condemns-indias-citizenship-law-calls-on-u-s-to-sanction-indian-leaders/

18.                        Rana Ayyub : Dec., 5, 2019: “Heartbreaking calls from Muzaffarnagar and Kanpur. Locals are saying RSS members’ along with cops and local leaders are attacking Muslim localities. Families are leaving for safer places. Cars and houses are being burnt. Remember the initial days of Gujarat 2002.”

https://twitter.com/RanaAyyub/status/1208626530345201664?s=20

19.                        Muslims targeted: Dec., 26, 2019: A pitched battle between anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act , or CAA, protesters and the police in Meerut was beginning to shift from the main roads to the narrow by-lanes of the Bhumiya Ka Pul neighbourhood at around 4pm on Friday, December 20, when Zaheer Mohammad, a labourer who works at a cattle fodder unit, walked out of his home to purchase beedis from a shop. The police and protesters were positioned at opposite ends of the lane at that moment, and the shopkeeper, Gulshan, a 40-year-old woman, decided to down the shutters when Zaheer asked her to pause and give him a bundle of beedis and a match. “He handed me Rs 10 and then squatted on a platform next to my shop to smoke,” said Gulshan. Moments later, a bullet hit Zaheer, 45, in his head and he collapsed on the floor. “Had Zaheer not been there, the bullet may have hit me,” said Gulshan. She doesn’t know who fired the fatal shot, but she is certain that it came from the police’s direction. “Zaheer was a simpleton. He didn’t even seem curious of bothered about the protests,” said Gulshan. Zaheer was among at least five civilians killed during protests that Friday in Meerut - the district with the highest casualty count. Each of them fell to bullets that the police insist were fired by the protesters themselves. Five days later, on Wednesday, the biggest grouse of the families of each of these men was that the police allegedly forced them to bury the dead urgently, secretly, away from their neighbourhoods, and in the absence of some of their nearest ones. In addition, each of the dead have been named as accused in the FIRs registered after their deaths. “These men were present at the scenes of violence and remain under suspicion. In the FIRs, they have been named as accused and their roles will be probed scientifically,” said AN Singh, superintendent of police (Meerut City). The SP said that there was “heavy firing” by the protesters in Meerut in which nine police and paramilitary personnel were hit and 69 empty cartridges were found during clean up. He also admitted that the police fired at the protesters, making it the third instance after Bijnor and Kanpur where police are now admitting to opening fire. “We fired seven rounds,” said the SP, adding that no deaths occurred at those spots. In the immediate aftermath of the statewide protests, police insisted that they did not fire at protestors. The violence has claimed 18 lives, of which at least 14 are from bullet injuries. The police have registered 14 FIRs and arrested 37 suspects so far for the violence.

20.                        Zaheer’s father, Munsi Ahmed, said, “Only four members of our family were around when Zaheer’s body was buried around 6.30am on Saturday, within two hours of us receiving his body. When we sought more time, the police told me that I would be held legally responsible for any disturbance. The police only dug the grave and hundreds of them stayed around till we were done with the burial. I couldn’t even bring his body home,” said Ahmed. A few lanes away, 28-year-old Mohsin was shot dead around the same time when he left his home to get fodder for his two buffaloes. “He had returned from namaaz. He gave two toffees to his four-year-old daughter and left home. Minutes later, we heard gunshots and someone came home to inform that my son was killed by a bullet in his chest,” said Mohsin’s mother, Nafeesa. Mohsin’s two younger brothers work as scrap dealers in Karnataka, and they heard of his death on Friday evening. “We had no money for flight tickets, so our friends pooled money for our travel. By the time we reached Meerut on Saturday noon, my brother was already buried. I loved my brother. He was older, but never beat me, never scolded me. I couldn’t see him one last time and I feel guilty about it,” said his brother, Mohammad Rameez, 19. The story of Asif, a 32-year-old orphan who worked as a labourer at a tyre shop is similar. “He was headed to a nearby mosque to offer prayers amidst the violent protests when he was shot in his back. The police compelled us to bury him just after morning namaaz on Saturday,” said his mother-in-law, Shameem. Asif has left behind a pregnant wife and three children. About four kilometers away, in the Ahmed Nagar neighbourhood of Meerut city, two other men were shot dead about a kilometre from their homes. One was Mohammad Asif, a 20-year-old e-rickshaw driver and the other was Aleem Ansari, a 24-year-old man who baked tandoori rotis at a dhaba on the Hapur Road where many violent protests unfolded on Friday.  As for Ansari, his autopsy was conducted in the absence of his family, police said. “His dhaba shut down due to the protests and he left for home. His body was found with a bullet wound to his head on the roadside along the route he took to return home,” said his brother, Mohammad Salauddin. His family, too, got to know of his death by seeing the images of the dead men on a mobile phone. “All night we couldn’t leave our neighbourhood because of the tense situation and the heavy police presence. In the morning, I reached a hospital and checked a body in the mortuary to find it wasn’t my brother’s,” said Salauddin. That body was Mohammad Asif’s. The family finally got Ansari’s body at 5pm. The autopsy had already been conducted. The SP said that since an identity card was found on Ansari’s body, the police didn’t feel the need to wait for his family before carrying out the post-mortem examination. Ansari’s body was handed over to his family on two conditions, said his other brother, Mohammad Mubarak. “We had to give an assurance that we wouldn’t take his body home and also not bury it in our immediate neighbourhood  “If the mob was shooting at the police, why weren’t any policemen killed? Why would the protesters shoot their own people?” asked Salim Siddiqui, a local social worker. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/meerut-families-allege-forced-burials-say-police-covering-up-excess/story-N76IEObf3Cunyk0uoCICgI.html

21.                        Arundhati Roy : Dec., 26, 2019: Mass protests have gripped parts of India over a controversial citizenship law that the country's 200 million Muslims fear will marginalise them.The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed earlier this month grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, but does not include naturalisation for Muslims. At least 25 people have been killed as hundreds of thousands rally in cities across the country against the law. Critics argue it goes against India's secular constitution  The law follows the publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in India's northeastern Assam state in August, which excluded nearly two million people - about half Hindu and half Muslim - from the official list of citizens, raising fears they could be rendered stateless.On Tuesday, India's federal cabinet approved funds for a census and population survey that many fear could be used to build a controversial citizens register.Acclaimed writer and activist Arundhati Roy joined in the protest in New Delhi on Wednesday, urging Indians to protect each other and guard against any oppression by Indian police and security forces.  Arundhati Roy: I am hopeful because this movement intellectually understands and emotionally and passionately understands the horror of this Hindutva programme that Modi, BJP, RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu supremacist organisation) have been selling for so many years and of course in power since 2014. They have only this as the one answer to every problem - economic, social, education, whatever it is. The idea is to ratchet up the hatred. And suddenly young people are saying "sorry, we are not buying this". And that's why I'm hopeful.  It is a precursor. It is the database. They are going to go through with whatever they can go through. They are going to go through with every bit of their agenda. And they are going to shed blood. And they are already killing people all over the state of Uttar Pradesh because that's where they have the most vicious chief minister, acting in tandem with the central government.  But they are losing power in all the other states. So just a few years ago they were in power in so many separate states, and now they hold power in just three or four states. Ten chief ministers have already said they will not allow the National Register of Citizens. They will not allow the NPR, which is the soft entry to this. I think people still have to understand that this is a very dangerous thing. But I think there is still a chance. If there was ever a chance, here is the chance to stop them.  I don't know. I don't have much hope there. Look at what happened with Assam. They went ahead with the national register while the Supreme Court is still hearing the case about whether or not it's constitutional. So all the damage is already done. The Supreme Court is still going along and prodding away. And the horror that's been unleashed on the people of Assam because of this few people in India know this.So I'm just hoping that it's going to take much more than the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has not so stood in the way of the government in any of its agenda so far. I hope it will, but I don't have that much hope. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/arundhati-roy-protests-india-citizenship-law-give-hope-191225131227378.html

22.                        Human rights violations: Dec., 27, 2019: In the aftermath of chief minister Adityanath’s exhortation that the Uttar Pradesh police take the “strictest” action against those protesting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in the state, this small town some 35 km from the district headquarters of Bijnor saw some of the worst instances of police violence with disturbing accounts of children being attacked and brutally beaten. In Nagina, there is a palpable terror amongst the Muslim residents – who form the vast majority of the population of Bijnor district – following the detention of over a hundred people on the afternoon of Friday, December 20, when a protest was forcibly broken up and then followed by police brutality. On Friday afternoon, after the namaz in the Jama Masjid, a large crowd had gathered outside the mosque. The previous Friday, a protest march had been planned which the police had given permission for only to withdraw clearance at 10 pm the night before. As a consequence, that protest never took place with the organisers swiftly informing the community about its cancelation. This Friday’s protest was different, however. It was unorganised and much larger, even though there had been no call to action from leaders within the community as before. According to residents, there were anywhere between 10,000-12,000 people at the mosque that afternoon, a congregation size usually only reached on festive occasions. The crowd that had gathered had come to pray, and after prayers, wanted to walk from the masjid to a town square called Gandhi Murti where protests are usually held. Shahnawaaz, a prominent member of the community and the son of the current nagarpalika chair Tahira Beghum, said that on realising the strength of the crowd, the shahi imam along with the other senior members of the community convinced the vast majority of people to go home peacefully. That left between 200-400 young people still in the streets, who decided they would walk to their destination via the protest site.  “They had just got it into their heads that they would reach Gandhi Murti. There was no unified plan, and no organisers,” Saeed, a lawyer who has been working with detainees, told The Wire. The protestors say that a few hundred metres from their destination, the police came into the road and began a lathi charge, triggering chaos. The protestors dispersed, with people trying to run away into the narrow lanes within the area as well as into houses, shops, and ATM booths, with the police starting to catch and detain all of those who were in the area. In all, the police arrested over a hundred people. The youngest person detained was a child of 13. From there, those detained were taken to Bijnor Police Lines, where they were held in a large hall through the night until they were presented in court the next day 24 hours later. While they were beaten en route, many of the persons detained – bystanders as well as protestors – said the worst of the brutality took place while they were in police custody at Bijnor.  Abdul*, 17, was in bed under a quilt on the freezing afternoon when The Wire’s reporters met him. He and his family insisted on their identity being hidden, torn between wanting the world to know about what happened and trying to keep themselves safe from a police force that was still keenly present in the locality. “They beat us a lot,” he said, using lathis. “They beat us in the street. They beat us in the vans. Then they beat us when we were inside.” At the Bijnor Police Lines, the police offered them water, which they drank. When some of them asked later to be allowed to go to the toilet, the police would take them out and beat them before letting them back in. People soon stopped asking for water, and soiled themselves where they stood. Abdul showed us visible bruises of lathi marks across his legs. Atifa*, his six-year-old sister came shyly and sat beside us, and on asking her what happened that evening, just said. “They took him away. Ammi was crying.” Asim*, another child who was detained,  is only 13. He  has yet to venture outside since the police released him on December 22. When we went to meet him, he was trembling under his quilt while his mother recounted what he had said to her when he returned. She said that he had told her the police had offered him water, and he had taken it because he was extremely thirsty. When shortly after he had to relieve himself, he was taken outside and brutally beaten. His older sister, who was sitting in another room, cried out, “They did more than that. He didn’t tell ammi but he told me – two policemen held his arms and held him against a wall and a third one hit him on his back with his lathi. He told me that they shoved his face to the ground with their shoe and pulled his hair, saying that they would pull it out. They had been pulling the beards of the others.” Asim stopped drinking water then so he would not have to go to the bathroom. Water was the first thing he asked for when he reached home two days after being detained. His sister is helplessly furious, and the only one in the home who has reached the stage of rage; the rest are all still terrified of what could come next. Asim’s uncle says, “Who do we go to? The police are outside our houses, they know where we live.”  Since he came back home, Asim has stopped talking. He does not eat, and does not leave the house. He wakes up at night with nightmares of police beatings, his family members say. When we spoke to him, he refused to let us see his face, terrified of anyone taking pictures which would then lead the police to him. The only thing he does is ask for water. Some of the relatives of those detained by the police said some of the detainees have found blood in their urine.   The Wire has learned that 104 people were detained on Friday, December 20, and that up to 21 minors who were part of this group were released by Sunday night. An FIR has been filed against the remaining 83 people, under 15 different IPC sections including Section 307 – attempt to murder. Tyagi pleaded ignorance about this information.  Tyagi’s line is that his force stopped a major riot from taking place by acting judiciously and swiftly to contain any violence. However, witnesses say that the only people who were committing violence were the police. Tyagi admits that his force detained whoever was on the street at the time, saying that as per Section 144 – which had been imposed – the presence of people in groups was wilful disobedience that gave cause for them to be detained.  The Wire has seen videos of people in the Nagina area where the violence took place, including those identified by local residents as non-Muslims, standing in groups larger than 4, watching as the protestors were being beaten. When asked why all the people detained by the police were Muslim if the protocol was simply that everyone in the area was being picked up, Tyagi deflected the question. He said that police action had prevented communal violence from taking place. In fact, every family The Wire spoke to has stoutly denied there being any communal sensitivity in the area at all. There was no pushback against the Hindus of the area, just the police https://thewire.in/communalism/in-bijnor-children-give-harrowing-accounts-of-beating-by-up-police-after-caa-protest

23.                        House to house verification: Dec., 27, 2019: The Narendra Modi government proposes to update the existing National Population Register, which already has an electronic database of more than 119 crore residents, by verifying the details of all respondents through house-to-house enumeration, according to an official manual on conducting the fresh NPR exercise. The NPR exercise has become controversial because the Citizenship Rules 2003 link the Population Register to the creation of a National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) or National Register of Citizens.According to the government manual seen by The Hindu, the enumerators, all government officials, will “modify and correct the demographic data items”. They are also tasked with collecting mobile, voter card, Indian passport and driving licence numbers from residents.The manual requires the “inclusion of all new residents, new households found in the local area during the field work  However, the Modi Government has repeatedly told Parliament that the NPR was the first step towards compiling the NRC. The Assam-specific NRC, conducted under the supervision of Supreme Court, had excluded 19 lakh out of 3.29 crore residents. There are apprehensions that people will have to dig out old documents to prove their residency in India on the lines of the exercise conducted in Assam. So far, the Modi government has not revealed the cut-off date for a nationwide NRC, which Home Minister Amit Shah has committed to in Parliament.  https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/npr-house-to-house-verification-planned/article30405387.ece

24.                        Kuwait MPs: Dec., 27, 2019: A group of lawmakers in Kuwait have expressed “deep concern” over the situation of Muslims in India and China, local media reported.In a statement issued on the sidelines of the National Assembly session on Tuesday, December 24, a group of . 27 lawmakers called on the Kuwaiti government to ‘exert diplomatic efforts’ and approach the United Nations to address the situation, Kuwait Times reported. The statement expressed “deep concern” on the “abusive legislative and repressive security measures taken by the Indian government against Muslims”, the report said.   “We are concerned about the violence and alleged use of excessive force by security forces that we’ve seen that have been taking place in the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. We very much call for restraint and urge full respect for the rights of freedom of opinion and expression and peaceful assembly,” he said. https://gulfbusiness.com/kuwaiti-mps-express-deep-concern-situation-muslims-india-china/

25.                        UP : Dec., 27, 2019: “For the last one week, Uttar Pradesh is under a reign of terror,” a group of political activists, who were part of a fact-finding team that just returned from the state, said while listing out several incidents of police crackdown on protesters against Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens.Addressing the media, the fact-finding team who recently visited Uttar Pradesh, including Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogendra Yadav, Communist Party of India (ML)’s Kavita Krishnan, civil society group United Against Hate’s Nadeem Khan, and human rights activist Harsh Mander said that the state’s security situation is so volatile that a communal riot can break out at any point. They accused the police of fomenting such a situation while pointing out successive instances of how police have targeted Muslims and peaceful protesters across India’s most populous state.“The Uttar Pradesh government is employing unlawful and lethal tactics to harass and intimidate the citizens that are protesting against CAA and NRC,” Yadav said, adding that the police are “brazenly targeting” Muslims and civil society activists. “The goal is not just to suppress all dissent against CAA or NRC in Uttar Pradesh, but to send a signal to anyone who may dare to raise a voice against anything,” a press note released by them said. Reports of severe custodial torture have been reported. According to various reports, between 18 and 24 people have been killed in police firing.  An eight-year-old boy was killed as the police lathi-charged the protesting crowd in Varanasi. “Those who have been killed are being framed in false cases. One of them, for example, was an e-rickshaw driver. His identity papers show he has lived in Delhi but has been staying in Meerut for some years. Now, the police has named him as the ‘mastermind of the riots’ and that he was the one who got many outsiders to participate in the riots. Everybody who knew this young man said this was a complete lie,” said Krishnan, who visited Meerut.She said she met a man, Habib, who son Ali was killed in police firing in Meerut. “I was so ashamed to even face him. He kept saying that his children grew up in the laps of his Hindu neighbours, and that they don’t see any hate in the eyes of the Hindus. Then why has this government turned against them. “A prejudiced government, which is filled with poison against Muslims, can’t decide through the National Popular Register who is a doubtful citizen and who is not. The government is trying to distract attention from such large-scale violence on its own people by showing one video clip of a stone pelter, or one arm-bearing protester, or a miscreant. We must ask whether such exceptions can justify the brutal police crackdown on people,” she said  Nadeem Khan said that while the highest number of attacks took place on Muslims, a large number of rights activists have also been arrested in Varanasi and Lucknow. “Throughout the state of Uttar Pradesh, you will find that police has sponsored hoardings seeking information on prominent activists. These activists are well-known, yet the police are calling people to share their information in return for rewards. There appears to be a competition between top police officials as to who would register the most number of FIRs,” he said. “More than 1 lakh FIRs with anonymous accused have already been registered in UP over the last one week. More than 22,500 FIRs have been filed only in Kanpur; 5,500 in Muzaffarnagar; 5,000 in Meerut, 2,200 in Bahraich. This has allowed the police to detain anyone.” The whole Muslim community is in anxiety, he said. “The terror is so much that people have fled their homes. In so many places, police first booked  people and then depending on their financial condition sought bribes to release them,” Khan added. More importantly, he asked, why is it that such incidents are being reported from only BJP-ruled states like UP, Assam, Karnataka or Delhi, where the Union government oversees the police “Big protest rallies have happened across India, in Nagpur, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Jaipur. Not even one violent incident was reported. It is clear that the BJP governments have a role to play in creating a ruckus during peaceful protest rallies,” he said. Yadav said that such is the reign of terror that they were advised not to hold this press conference in Lucknow.“We got reports that all private hospitals in Meerut and Muzaffarnagar were strictly instructed by the police not to admit people with bullet injuries. They were admitted only in government hospitals, where families of the victims were not allowed to meet them at all,” he said. He said Muslims were being treated as foreigners in UP. Those arrested were not even allowed legal help. “Some advocates who reached out to victims were also arrested. Such is the state,” Yadav said   https://thewire.in/rights/uttar-pradesh-caa-protests-report

26.                        European expelled: Dec., 28, 2019: A Norwegian tourist has said authorities have ordered her to leav India after taking part in protests against a new citizenship law, becoming the second European to be ejected over the demonstrations. Janne-Mette Johansson, 71, on Friday said police gave her "verbal assurances" that she could take part in peaceful demonstrations against the law that critics say discriminates against India's 200 million Muslims. "Yesterday [Thursday], Indian immigration officials came to my hotel for questioning and I was mentally tortured. Today, they again showed up at my hotel asking me to leave the country or they will take a legal action and deport me," she said    23 protest in Kochi  Earlier this week, a German physics student in the southern Indian city of Chennai was also asked to leave after taking part in a protest and comparing the law with anti-Jewish Nazi legislation. Photos on social media purportedly of the student, named as Jakob Lindenthal, showed him carrying a placard saying "1933-1945 We have been there". "After the Nazi era, many people claimed not to have known anything about genocides or atrocities or stated that they were only passive," Lindenthal told German broadcaster, Deutsche Welle. "Therefore I see it as a duty to learn from these lessons and not only watch when things happen that one believes to be the stepping stones to a possibly very dangerous development."    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/norwegian-asked-leave-india-citizenship-law-protests-191227082023038.html

27.                        Police excesses video: Dec., 28, 2019: On December 19, even as the Mangaluru police had begun beating and shooting at people protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, a short video clip of a man desperately clutching  his three-year-old daughter and resisting the police went viral on social media. The man was seen jostling with the police – both men and women – and resisting their attempt to drag him and his daughter closer to a parked bus. The child, terrified by the men in uniform, was heard screaming. Her elder sister and mother could also be seen in the video clip, trying to save her and pleading with the police to let them go.   registered at the Pandeshwara police station. Ibrahim, a 32-year-old scrap dealer, was at his workshop on Bunder road when he got a panicked call from his wife. It was around 3 pm, and Ibrahim’s wife had gone to pick up their elder daughter from school. Their younger daughter had accompanied her too. As the autorickshaw in which the mother and daughter were travelling pulled into the Clock Tower area, a mob was being chased by the police. The auto driver refused to ply further and asked Ibrahim’s wife and children to get off the rickshaw. “My wife called me and told me to come and pick her up immediately. I knew things were tense in the city, so I rushed to the spot,” Ibrahim tells The Wire.  “I had to dodge the police and the crowd to get to the spot my family was stranded. It was a horrifying feeling to think of them stranded amid violence,” he adds. Ibrahim says as he got to the spot and saw his family there, he was finally relieved. “I was on the other side of the road and when I began to move closer to my family, some policemen, all dressed in riot- gear, came close to me and began to drag me towards a parked bus. I tried to explain to them that I was on the street because of my family and they should let me go. They did not budge.” Ibrahim says his wife and children soon joined him and pleaded with the police. “My younger daughter, my jigar ka tukada (my beloved child), leaped over me and held on to me. There was such chaos that I couldn’t make sense of anything that was happening. All I knew was I have to protect my family,” a visibly disturbed Ibrahim says. The fear is evident in Ibrahim’s eyes when he tells this reporter that she can speak to his wife and children, but shouldn’t mention their names or use their pictures anywhere. “I don’t know how long will I be around to protect them. I am trying to do everything in my capacity to ensure their safety,” he says. Even as Ibrahim continues to speak to The Wire, his wife stands around nervously and utters a few words in Byari, a language spoken particularly by the Muslims of Dakshina Kannada. Their daughter, clueless about what had befallen her family, continues to play on the side and breaks the tense air in the room with her spontaneous giggles. In these difficult times, however, Ibrahim’s neighbours have stood by his side, which he says is reassuring. When this reporter visited Ibrahim, at least half a dozen people peeped into the tiny room just to ensure Ibrahim was okay. Ibrahim has challenged the police’s claim and dares them to show a single scrap of evidence that shows him being involved in the protest or pelting stones anywhere. “If the police were to show a single picture or video, I will walk up to the police myself and surrender. I know they have nothing against me and this case, like against a thousand others, is only filed to torture us in the coming years,” Ibrahim says. https://thewire.in/rights/mangaluru-police-excess-anti-caa-protests

28.                        Government’s disinformation: Dec., 29, 2019: In September, three months before this condemnation of jhoot, a detention centre with capacity to house 3,000 inmates was nearing completion in Matia in western Assam at a cost of Rs 146 crore. This was the first of 10 centres planned. A few days before his speech, Karnataka opened its first detention centre “for illegal immigrants” 40 km outside Bengaluru. So, whose words are jhoot hai, jhoot hai, jhoot hai? When December witnessed, across India, protests of a kind never seen since Independence, the spontaneity of it surprised everyone. It was a people’s movement, spearheaded by no one in particular. For two weeks, even Modi was too stunned to speak. The notable feature of the nationwide protest was the absence of a central leadership. Students and young women seemed to be their own leaders. In Yogi Adityanath’s UP, Muslims, who oppose the (amended) Citizenship Act, are picked up and killed. Activist Rana Ayyub released a list of 14 young men who were thus eliminated. Other reports describe how Muslim families flee as police vandalise their homes and harass their women. All the 23 deaths in the course of the protests have been in BJP-ruled states. This new India is getting international attention as well. The outside world sees the citizenship laws as essentially anti-Muslim. India’s stock in countries from Japan to Europe and the US has gone significantly down if foreign reports are any indication. https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/columns/t-j-s-george/2019/dec/29/in-other-words-who-is-lying-2082153.html

29.                        OIC: Dec., 29, 2019: the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has decided to convene a meeting on the grim human rights situation in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and enactment of an anti-Muslim law in India, The Express Tribune learnt on Saturday. According to the sources, the ministerial level OIC meeting is expected to be held in Islamabad in April 2020. Sources claimed that the official communiqué of the meeting will specifically mention the human rights violation in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and the passage of Citizenship Amendment Bill, which is fundamentally discriminatory against Muslims in India. Insiders said the meeting will push India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lift the curfew in IOK — in place since August 5 when New Delhi revoked its special status in a bid to convert the region’s Muslim majority into minority. The forum would also put pressure on the Modi government to protect the rights of the Muslim community in India. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2126598/1-oic-convene-meeting-iok-lockdown-anti-muslim-law-india/

30.                        Preempt protests: Dec., 30, 2019: The clampdown of the Uttar Pradesh police against the Muslim community has now extended to those who have not taken part in the ongoing protests. In three villages located less than 30km from Lucknow, at least 100 Muslim men have been made to furnish a bond of Rs50,000 each under Section 107/116 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which virtually serves as an assurance that they will not participate in any protest. They will have to appear in court every fortnight or so for at least the next six months. The section is meant to be a preventive measure: it is invoked by an Executive Magistrate against anyone under his jurisdiction who could pose a reasonable threat to the peace. He is supposed to do this after receiving information and forming an opinion that there is substantial ground for proceeding against the individual. Its invocation on a mass scale against those who have never violated the law in the past has come as a shock to the residents of these villages.   The residents of Kamlabad Badhauli told Scroll.in that on December 19, even as protests broke out in Lucknow to be followed by a brutal police crackdown, the day passed off normally in the village. No one from the village had gone for the protests, at least none of the 37 who have been served notices. According to them, the first they heard of these notices was when on December 23, Vishnu Kumar, a chowkidar, was ordered by the local police station to go door to door with a list of names and addresses of the men charged under Section 107/116 of CrPC. They were asked to sign against their names but none of them realised what had transpired until December 26 when they were told they had to appear in court. It is then that they consulted a lawyer. To make matters worse, it is not clear whether these charges will result in a criminal record being entered against their name. For many of the young men preparing for examinations and looking for government jobs, this has become an additional source of anxiety. While charges under preventive sections do not amount to a conviction, and ordinarily should not amount to a criminal record, there are conflicting legal opinions about this. A judgement of the Chhattisgarh High Court has held that proceedings under Section 107 of CrPC make a person unfit for government employment. Even without a criminal record, the men who have been served notices as potential troublemakers could become easy suspects, even fodder, for the next time the police wanted to pick up anyone for any perceived crime or breach of peace, said a lawyer. Worse, notices under Section 107 of the Criminal Procedure Code allow a magistrate to order the arrest of an individual if he is convinced that only an arrest could avoid breach of peace. In the past, the Supreme Court and several High Courts have admonished the police for keeping people in jail for months using Section 107 and without registering any criminal case. The young man who was preparing for the state public service commission exams said other than him and his elder brother, two other men from their family have also been charged. The youngest of them will turn eighteen next month. “They haven’t arrested us or beaten us, and they couldn’t recover damages from us, but they have marked us for life,” he said. “All of us will have a criminal record for no other reason than being Muslim.” The fear in this village is compounded by bewilderment. The villagers repeatedly pointed out that Kamlabad Badhauli, with its 30 per cent Muslim population, has never seen communal tension. Kamlabad Badhauli, though, is not the only village to be targeted. A kilometre away similar stories emerged at Muslim Nagar, a larger Muslim-dominated village. Here, 20 men have been charged under Section 107/116 of the CrPC. Many of them had gathered at a barber shop run by a man in his early thirties. Two of his brothers are also facing the same charges.“There is no case against any of us,” he said. “On the day of the protests, there is CCTV footage of my brother and I at the electricity board office paying our bills, then we were at the Vodaphone store to sort out our mobile issues. There is a camera there too which would have recorded our visit.”He went on to detail the whereabouts of the others in the village who have also been charged: one man who was at the hospital, accompanying his brother for his chemotherapy, another man who was in Bombay, a third who was on duty at the Trauma Centre at KGMC hospital in Lucknow.“We are innocent, but that’s not the point. We are Muslims and that’s the real issue,” he said in conclusion. Another four kilometers from Muslim Nagar, at Madhion village, residents said as many as 150 Muslim men had been charged under Section 107/116 of the CrPC. Three Muslim men told Scroll.in that at first they were so terrified that they thought of fleeing the village but then a lawyer in the village told them this would aggravate the charges against them.“We have no choice but to live with this torture,” one of them, employed as a tailor, said. As this reporter turned to leave for Lucknow, one of the men in Muslim Nagar said: “This could destroy our lives forever. Is this the badla [revenge] that the chief minister was talking about?” https://www.dawn.com/news/1524904/no-criminal-record-no-protest-yet-indian-muslim-men-made-to-sign-bonds-in-uttar-pradesh-villages

Monthly update  3:  November 2019 : Muslims in India

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1.      Education of Muslim’s: Nov., 1, 2019: Muslim youth in the Hindi heartland fare the worst. Their educational attainment is the lowest in Haryana, 3 per cent in 2017-18; in Rajasthan, this figure is 7 per cent; it is 11 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh is the only north Indian state where the Muslims are doing relatively better in education — their educational attainment is 17 per cent. In all these states, except MP, SCs fare better than Muslims. The gap between SCs and Muslims with respect to educational attainment is 12 ppt Haryana and Rajasthan and 7 ppt in UP. In 2011-12, in all these states, SCs were slightly above the Muslims on this parameter. In eastern India, the educational attainment among the Muslim youth in Bihar is 8 per cent, as against 7 per cent among SCs, in West Bengal it is 8 per cent, as against 9 per cent for SCs, and in Assam it is 7 per cent as against 8 per cent for SCs. While the gap between Muslims and SCs has narrowed in the last six years, the latter still fare better. In western India, the educational attainment figures for Muslims are better compared to 2011-12. But they do not necessarily reflect a significant educational improvement when compared to the SCs and Hindu-OBCs. In Gujarat, the gap in educational attainment between the Muslims and SCs is14 ppt in 2017-18; six years ago, it was just 8 ppt. In Maharashtra, the Muslims were marginally — by 2 ppt — better off than SCs in 2011-12, they have now not only lost to SCs but the latter has now overtaken them by 8 ppt. While the marginalisation of Muslims began several years ago, the phenomenon seems to have gathered pace in recent years. As Sam Asher et al point out in their recent study, ‘Intergenerational Mobility in India: Estimates from New Methods and Administrative Data’, “Muslims are being left out from educational mobility in India while the SCs are getting integrated into it”. More studies are needed to link this disturbing process to the political marginalisation of Muslims. The activities of vigilante groups could possibly have led young Muslims to withdraw in to their shell. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/muslim-community-youth-india-marginalisation-6096881/ #MuslimsInIndia

2.        Indian Judiciary and Muslims: Nov.,2,2019: To abrogate Article 35-A and to rundown Article 370, the GOI passed the J&K reorganization Act. At present 18 petitions are pending before the Supreme court challenging government’s move. The court has not given any interim respite and hence the law is very much in place, furthering government’s agenda.To criminalize Triple Talaq government brought Muslim women protection of rights on marriage law. At present 4 petitions are pending before the Supreme Court challenging government’s move.The court has not given any interim respite and hence the law is very much in place, furthering government’s agenda. The government introduced Citizenship Amendment Bill in its previous term, which lapsed after it failed to pass the Upper House. They are planning to reintroduce the bill in the winter session. Given the majority it has been able to achieve since, the bill is sure to pass and would surely be once again, like the other similar discriminatory laws would land in court. The court is most likely not to give any interim respite and hence the law would be very much in place and by the time the judgement would come a lot of damage would have been done. In case of Babri Masjid things may turn out the same. A judgement in favour of Muslims just in case would compel the government to overturn it through a legislative enactment, which would land the matter once again in court. Now given the sensitivity of the matter whether the court would put any immediate stay on any construction activity remains to be seen. For once the law is enacted no time would be lost before construction would start. Any delay and the construction of the temple would achieve irreversible milestones and create further legal hassles. In the event of the other possibility i.e the verdict being in favour of the Hindus, there is nothing stopping the temple from coming up at the disputed site. In both the cases, it will be a record low for Indian judiciary. Not for the government. Not for the people. But for the judiciary. And not for the first time indeed. That we never took notice of the falling credibility of the Supreme court is our own sin. Recently, The Supreme court of India came under some strict scrutiny when the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement criticizing the delay in adjudication of petitions raising fundamental rights violation in Kashmir. The UN watchdog in a scathing remark raised some serious issues of law that need to be answered by the Supreme Court of India. Itquestioned why the lockdown in Kashmir was not tested on grounds of reasonable restrictions even when it had been over 80 days since it came into effect. It states that the curtailment of fundamental rights of an entire people was not a necessary and proportionate response and questions the preventive detention of the entire Kashmir leadership without proper justification. The statement is also critical of the manner in which the law was passed without any consultation with the people of the state and on the basisof which the state has been reorganized. Not least for the supreme court it points out the violence committed by the security forces and highlights the adverse use of pellet guns. If only the court was listening. https://countercurrents.org/2019/11/kashmir-supreme-courts-delaying tactics?fbclid=IwAR1_RXlvSUhWsBSTQ4jubnGG4dYTmRDbcWKL2RnLOJWHZNV50DtZCxgpkrA

3.      Muslim writers: Nov., 3, 2019:  "I am scared of words like 'Are you a Muslim', Shahnaz Bashir said. He said, "People set up decrees as soon as you start talking about it [being a Muslim]. It all boils down to the Muslim-ness." Bashir said, "The fate of a Muslim writer in India can be judged now by the fear that he/she carries to places like these [Delhi] and hesitates in talking about that fear." Further, hinting at the situation in Kasmir, Bashir said, "Sometimes I wonder if everything is seditious, is there something called free expression. Does it really exist?" https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/muslim-writers-in-india-fear-shahnaz-bashir-1615150-2019-11-02

4.      Judiciary and Muslims: Nov., 4, 2019: Muslims facing 'systematic discrimination' in criminal justice system: Owaisi on Sunday alleged the members of the minority community were experiencing "systemic discrimination" in the criminal justice system regardless of the party in power. He was reacting to the acquittal of one of the accused in the 2008 Rampur CRPF camp attack case by a court in Uttar Pradesh  -justice system- , the Hyderabad MP said, "Muslims are incarcerated in terror cases only to be acquitted after decades." Muslims are incarcerated in terror cases only to be acquitted after decades. We experience systemic discrimination…  https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/muslims-facing-systematic-discrimination-in-criminal-justicesystem-owaisi/articleshow/71881877.cms

5.      Assam: Nov., 4, 2019: Welfare Party of India held a national convention at Constitutional Club of India, New Delhi in which noted political and social personalities participated. They alleged that Modi Govt. is doing vote bank politics on religious grounds. Supreme Court of India did not overlook anyone but our biased media is engaged in propagating that all those whose names are not found in NRC are the intruders. It is preparing an atmosphere for sending such persons out of the country. It is an organized conspiracy to deprive some persons of their Indian citizenship. The participants condemned the statement made by Home Minister, Mr. Amit Shah in which he had stated that there is no need to be afraid of NRC for the Hindus, Sikhs and Christians. Noted Human Rights activists told that all those who have Aadhar card, Passport and those whose parents have been in Assam, their names have been deleted. It only shows that under the pretext of NRC, a planned conspiracy has been hatched to dislodge the Muslims from Assam which has the second largest Muslim concentration after Kashmir. Persons whose surname or language is Bengali have been deleted from the NRC https://www.siasat.com/planned-conspiracy-dislodge-muslims-assam-1716636/

6.       HR status of Muslims in India: Nov., 5, 2019: Minorities constitute 20.2% of India’s population, but only 7.5% in HE enrollment. Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and others—and are collectively at 2.3% of total enrollment against 6% of the population.The Muslim community experienced a 23% decrease in fertility rates between 2003-05 and 2013-15 correlating with an increase of 30% in female literacy (only 14% in male literacy). Other religions too saw significant drops in fertility      . https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/the-minority-report-muslim-community-must-take-charge-of-improvinjg-their-human-capital/1754331/ #MUslimsInIndia

7.      Lynching: Nov.,5 ,2019:  an 80-year-old Muslim man was lynched in Sitamarhi , Rumours had swirled about a Durga idol being damaged by a stone hurled from a mosque. Zainul Ansari paid the price. Zainul Ansari, his body burned beyond recognition by a lynch mob of strangers, including children and a woman. Sitamarhi, around 150 km north of Patna, does have a history of communal tensions. In 1992, after the Babri Masjid was demolished, this town saw the fresh flowing of blood. But recent years were peaceful, until the Bharatiya Janata Party and Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) joined hands to form the state government. It began to look as though activists of the Sangh organisations were raring for a fight with the Muslim residents of the area. https://www.dawn.com/news/1515062/one-morning-returning-from-visiting-his-sister-an-80-year-old-muslim-man-was-lynched-in-sitamarhi  

8.      Muslim policemen in India: Nov., 8, 2019: Muslim representation in Indian police has “remained consistently low” at 3 to 4 per cent,  the number stood at 8 per cent even for Jammu and Kashmir, India’s lone Muslim-majority state that was bifurcated into two union territories last month. https://theprint.in/india/governance/only-8-of-policemen-in-muslim-majority-jk-are-muslim-study-finds/317337/  

9.      Babri Mosque: Nov., 9, 2019: A Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on November 9 has delivered its judgment in the cross-appeals filed by the Hindu and Muslim sides challenging the three-way partition of the disputed 2.77 acres of Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land among Ram Lalla, Nirmohi Akhara and the Sunni Waqf Board in September 2010.  The Bench has ordered that a temple must be constructed at the disputed site and the Muslims must be compensated with five acres of land at a prominent place in Ayodhya . Babri  Mosque  was a mosque in Ayodhya  India. Located in Ayodhya district, at a spot believed by Hindus to be the birthplace of Hindu deity Rama, it has been a bone of contention between the Hindu and Muslim communities since the 18th century. According to the mosque's inscriptions, it was built in 1528–29 (935 AH) by a general Mir Baqi, on orders of the Mughal emperor Babur. The mosque was attacked and demolished by Karsevaks in 1992 and ignited communal violence across the country. On 6 December 1992, a large group of Hindu activists belonging to the Vishva Hindu Parishad and allied organizations demolished the mosque, triggering riots all over India, killing around 2,000 people, most of them Muslim https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ayodhya-verdict-live-updates/article29929219.ece?fbclid=IwAR08enDQdJvzAC1X9CJlXP47VmZCRAo48fbK0V58lfz3icUz-PE3ENQD1C8

10.  Babur and Ayodhya mosque: Nov., 10,201i: “Babur ki aulad” is a pejorative Hindu nationalists often use for Indian Muslims. It translates to “Babur’s progeny.”This phrase condenses hatred and xenophobia into a potent mix to be used to provoke  Muslims or put them down. On the other hand, it is also used to exhort other Hindu nationalists into action.  To many modern Hindus, he was the Muslim tyrant who demolished the Ram temple at Ayodhya in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, to build a mosque in its stead. This temple, it is believed by Hindu nationalists, originally marked the birthplace of their god Ram. In 1992, Hindu right-wing groups demolished the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya to “avenge” the years of “injustice.”And this elevation of Babur’s status to an arch-rival was no accident. The Babri Masjid-Ram Temple dispute in Ayodhya is about 150 years old. The first recorded instance of communal violence dates back to 1853, when Hindus stepped forward to claim the right to worship at the site of the mosque. India was still under the British rule, but the British empire’s “divide and rule” policies were altering the religious fabric of India. This eventually culminated in the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, crystallizing the Hindu-Muslim rivalry and, in turn, demonising historical Islamic rule in India. When idols of Ram mysteriously appeared inside the Babri Masjid precinct in 1949, Babur was already fighting a losing battle against a Hindu god who had mass following in India. The first court case in this dispute under independent India was filed in 1950, where Hindus and Muslims both claimed ownership over the land parcel in question. The Ramjanmabhoomi movement, which began in the 1980s, also needed an “evil” that the good of the Ramayan could defeat. In essence, at the heart of the Ramayan epic lies this moral and physical victory over “demonic” forces. Ram, the good king, a true statesman, was pitted against Ravan, the “evil” king. In modern politics, Babur replaces Ravan, symbolizing all the Muslims invaders who “destroyed” Hindu religious sites and strengthened the foundation for Islamic rule in the country   Babur’s symmetrical gardens, for instance, do not feature in the trope of his role in the Ayodhya controversy. Instead, a mosque that bears his name—Babri Masjid was in reality built by one of Babur’s generals and not Babur himself—has etched him in the Hindu nationalist’s mind simply as an evil force to be defeated. https://qz.com/india/1745432/babur-replaced-ravan-as-ramayans-villain-in-modern-day-ayodhya/

11.                        Babri Mosque: Nov., 11, 2019: The Muslim side in the legal battle of the Babri Mosque case possessed all the evidence under the law that the site belongs to the masjid, said a lawyer fighting the case. “Never were Muslims stopped from offering prayers inside the Babri Masjid as there was no such claim of any idol being at the site where the Masjid was built,” Jilani told Anadolu Agency in a telephone interview from New Delhi. Jilani, however, said the Muslim side challenged the judgment in Supreme Court that that only Muslims prayed inside the mosque. “The court verdict was baseless and was not based on any evidence that Hindus also offered prayers at the same site,” Jilani claimed. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2097176/3-babri-mosque-evidence-us-says-muslim-lawyer/?fbclid=IwAR1mqR8e8C-V4ooYw-gOrioqb9Qvr1w_CNDyyEFnvptPwsTdmoX5eXE8u1s $muslimsInIndia

12.  Hindutva pop: Nov., 12, 2019:  Some of the most violent expressions in Hindutva pop focus on Kashmir, the Muslim-majority territory that is disputed by Pakistan and that was stripped of its autonomy by Mr. Modi’s government in August. Popular lyrics call for harsher action against Pakistan and separatist Kashmiri militants, and for forced conversions and a Hindu settlement campaign in Kashmir.  During Hindu festivals, the processions have started blasting the music in Muslim neighborhoods in shows of intimidation. Most of the songs prominently feature the call of “Jai Shri Ram!” Meaning “Hail Lord Ram,” a major Hindu god, it has become the battle cry for Hindu nationalists. Mobs have attacked Muslims who refuse to chant it along with them.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/world/asia/india-hindutva-pop-narendra-modi.html

13.  NRC: Nov., 17,2019: A federal US commission on international religious freedom has alleged that  Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam is a tool to "target religious minorities and to render Muslims stateless" Observing that the final NRC list, which validates bona fide Indian citizens of Assam, has excluded 19 lakh residents, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on Friday said that a number of domestic and international organisations have expressed concern that the NRC is a "targeted mechanism to disenfranchise Assam's Bengali Muslim https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/assam-nrc-a-tool-to-render-muslims-stateless-us-panel-on-religious-freedom-119111600636_1.html

14.  UCC: Nov., 17, 2019: Uniform Civil Code as one of the top three poll promises of the ruling party is hard to ignore.  an organization that goes by the name of Bharatiya Matdata Sangathan has rekindled demand for a Uniform Civil Code.The organization, which is headed by Delhi BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay will hold a seminar on November 23 this year, whose core agenda remains “Universal Civil Code for all Indians”. https://www.sentinelassam.com/editorial/is-uniform-civil-code-now-on-bjp-sangh-radar/

15.   Minorities denied academic positions: Nov., 17, 2019: The suicide of bright young scholar Fathima Latheef at the IIT Madras is reflective of the brutal and atrocious caste order prevailing in these institutions which discriminate against Dalit, OBC, Adivasi and Muslim students. This suicide is an institutional murder where the masterminds and caste supremacists are well protected. The list is long in recent years as how bright young dynamic scholars particularly hailing from Dalit Adivasi Muslim background are being targeted not merely by the Savarna students but their faculties. It is difficult for India’s racists savarnas to accept brilliant self respecting bright scholars from other communities who dont agree with them. These institutions who I term as Gurukuls now where a Droancharya is ready to cut the fingers of students from marginalized sections, are today becoming the hunting ground for these students who aspire high though their social location might not be that strong. Rohith Vemula was murdered in Hyderabad Central University Campus, Dr Payal Tadvi faced very similar pressure in her medical college in Mumbai while nineteen years old Fathima became the latest victim of this murder series. Fathima was a topper in the entrance examination. She topped in her earlier exams too. Hailing from Kollam district in Kerala, Fathima had big dreams when she got into Integrated MA programme in Humanities and Social Sciences at the IIT Madras. Her parents have accused Prof Sudarshan Padmanabhan for mentally torturing her. Fathima’s story is not alone. The caste forces have revolted with a vengeance everywhere. There are attack by targeting institutions and individuals. Look at the JNU and how the government and all others have joined hand to destroy this credible institutions. They are unable to break the spirit of the University and yet through media and the paddlers of lies, we are witnessing a campaign against provisions which ensure that children of all the communities who are the margin can enter into a credible and privileged institution. IITs and IIMs are actually much regressive in their caste prejudices and that is why it is very difficult for girls like Fathima to survive there. Not long ago, a Ph.D award of a scientist who happened to belong to scheduled caste community was held up by the brahmanical faculty in IIT Kanpur, accusing the scholar of plagiarism, when everybody knew the track record of the senior scholar as brilliant. His father passed away hearing about the same that his son might not get his hard earned Ph.D. Finally, after much campaign by friends the IIT K appointed a committee and ultimately charges against him were dropped Sad part is that there is no out cry. Political parties as usual remain silent as these are not issues for them. More criminal is the silence of those who ‘represent’ Dalit Bahujan-minority communities. It is not the issue of making one statement. It is time, they develop their vision for education particularly how are they going to strengthen and encourage India’s huge Bahujan communities into these institutions. Fathima Lateef’s killing is the story of discrimination against Muslims too who are now increasingly feeling it at every level. Isolation, contempt and attempt to define them further. We must speak up against such efforts. You blame communities are being pampered. You blame them for not being ‘educated’ but what happens when the students come at their own. Fathima was not wearing ‘Burqa’ so by all the ‘standards’ of the brahmanical IITs, she was a modern Muslim girl and yet she was forced to die  . https://countercurrents.org/2019/11/why-have-indias-elite-institutions-become-murderers-of-dalit-adivasi-muslim-scholars?fbclid=IwAR3XSPiNZ0vag3tKtJNl76SqEvdh4cfAGzgbi6-DjHbxN7z2HTp0dvVX-ko

16.  Muslims second class citizens: Nov., 22, 2019: The ruling on the Ayodhya site was seen as a blow to Muslims. It also came at a time when Muslims increasingly see themselves as second-class citizens in the predominantly Hindu country. India has a long history of sectarian violence, but over the past few years, there has been a rise in suspected hate crimes against Muslims. All of this comes under the shadow of the country's Prime Minister Modi, a self-proclaimed Hindu nationalist who has spoken out repeatedly against India's secularism. Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has roots in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing organization founded in 1925 that promotes the vision of a Hindu nation. So when the BJP was reelected in May, Indian Muslims worried that the fabric of society could change. Modi dismissed their fears as "imaginary" -- but less than six months into his second term, there are signs things could get worse for India's Muslims. Verniers said Modi's BJP was creating a nation where citizens of different religions were increasingly second-class citizens. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/19/asia/india-muslim-modi-intl-hnk/index.html

17.                        Muslim scholar: Nov., 23, 2019: Muslim scholar of Sanskrit has gone into hiding after protests from some rightwing Hindu students claiming that, as a Muslim, he cannot teach Sanskrit, the ancient classical language of Hinduism. Feroz Khan, 29, was the unanimous choice of a selection committee at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi for the post of assistant professor of Sanskrit literature. The committee members were impressed with his erudition, which stems from a childhood passion for the language that continued into further education. But on 7 November, two days after Khan took up the post, members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a rightwing student organisation with a Hindu nationalist ideology, staged a campus protest demanding that Khan be moved to a different faculty. One placard read: “A Muslim cannot teach us our religion.” They vowed to keep protesting until Khan was transferred to another post. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/21/india-muslim-sanskrit-professor-forced-to-flee-by-hindu-students

Indian Muslims: Dec., 2, 2019: In recent years Indian society has largely become polarized on religious lines as it never was earlier. Communalism had existed earlier too in India, but it was largely latent, and erupted only on occasions. But after the Hindu right wing Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014 it has become open, virulent, and continuous. Lynching and atrocities on Muslims have increased steeply. Hate speeches against them are common, and in many places they live in fear. Muslims are often attacked if they have an affair with a Hindu girl (known as ‘love jihad’) for sporting a beard or wearing a skull cap, or for not saying ‘Jai Shri Ram’. A Union Minister, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, called Muslims ‘haraamzadas’ and a former Union Minister, Jayant Sinha, garlanded alleged lynchers.. In many schools in India Hindu students often call Muslim students anti-national, traitors, terrorists and Pakistanis (sometimes with the tacit suggestion/approval of the teachers). This traumatizes the Muslim student, who is made to feel he does not belong here. Communalism has sharply increased even in states which were earlier regarded as bastions of secularism, like West Bengal (no doubt helped by the Muslim appeasement policy of Mamata Banerji). Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha may soon follow suit.. Institutions in India have been ‘saffronized’, the media has largely been ‘Modified’, history and science perverted, and freedom of speech suppressed by frequent use of sedition and preventive detention laws. The Indian Constitution proclaims India to be a secular country, but the ground reality has become very different, with ‘Hindutva’ ruling the roost. The one institution which could have prevented this, the Indian Supreme Court, has shamelessly surrendered before the BJP, as is evident from: (1) Its disgraceful Ayodhya verdict in which it sanctified naked aggression; (2) Its agreeing to appoint Justice Kureshi of the Bombay High Court as chief justice of the much smaller Tripura High Court instead of MP High Court to which he had been recommended earlier by the Collegium, obviously on pressure of the government as he was a Muslim; (3) Its refusal to quash the undemocratic clampdown in Kashmir and arrest of the 82-year-old Farooq Abdullah and other Kashmiri leaders despite liberty being a fundamental right guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Even the NRIs living outside India and Indian Americans have become largely polarized, as I have myself noticed in the Bay Area of California (where I am presently staying). The intense polarization in India today is because the ruling BJP thrives on communal hatred. The BJP is dominated by an organization called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which is rabidly anti-minority, particularly anti-Muslim.Top BJP functionaries can ordinarily only be those who have been RSS members for several decades, e.g., Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, etc. Can the mindsets of such persons, drilled and crammed for decades with a reactionary feudal and minority hating ideology, change merely because they have come to power? Can a leopard change its spots? Communalism is going to increase in India in the coming times because that is what brought the BJP, which had only 2 seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984 and has 303 today, to power. It is the mantra of BJP success, and the gullible Hindu majority in India has been largely hypnotized by it, just as the Germans were by Hitler. https://www.indiawest.com/letters_to_editor/dark-clouds-ahead-for-india/article_e86a3e3a-12db-11ea-a360-4398598ceed7.html

Monthly update  2 October 2019 : Muslims in India

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1.      Assam: Oct., 1, 2019: On August 31, the right-wing Hindu Indian government labeled 1.9 million of its residents as stateless. The official purpose given by the government was to root out undocumented people. But it is widely known that the true motivation was to displace Bengali Muslims from the northeastern Indian state of Assam. This was made obvious in speeches and promises made in the run-up to the recently held national elections that brought the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government back to power for a second consecutive term.A noxious act in and of itself, the implications of the roundup are likely to be even more consequential for the future of the Indian polity, furthering a project of isolating and punishing Muslims while expanding detentions of undocumented people, Muslims, and others. The instrument stripping 1.9 million people of rights is the National Register of Citizens (NRC), a now-arcane institution that was created in 1951 to identify who belonged to India at the time. It was reincarnated in 2014 and completed its work in Assam this year. 1.9 million people amounts to 6 percent of the total population of Assam and is two times the number of Rohingya refugees in neighboring Bangladesh. The current incarnation of the NRC’s purpose was to identify undocumented immigrants from neighboring, Muslim-majority Bangladesh. But its reach goes far beyond.The new NRC forced all of Assam’s residents to submit documentation like passports, land records, or birth certificates to show they had been in the country or were descended from people who were in the country on or before midnight of March 24, 1971, the day when Bangladesh went to war for independence from Pakistan, with India’s eventual armed support. the government has ordered states to build detention centers across the country in places as far flung as Assam in the northeast, Karnataka in the south, and Maharashtra in the west (all states that have BJP majority governments, incidentally). It has indicated that its inclination is to round up Bangladeshi undocumented migrants across the country.  By September 9, it had become clear that the vast majority of those left out of the NRC were Bengali Hindus who form the traditional voter base for the BJP in Assam and part of its vision for a Hindu nation   https://jacobinmag.com/2019/09/india-narendra-modi-bjp-assam-bengali-muslims-displaced

2.      Muslim plight: Oct., 5, 2019:  Amid rising persecution of minority groups in India, a former judge of India’s Supreme Court has issued a chilling warning to Muslims residing in the Hindu-dominated country. Justice (retd) Markandey Katju, who is also an ex-chairman of the Press Council of India, has cautioned that “Muslims in India will be targeted in coming times, like Jews in [Nazi] Germany, as scapegoats”. In an article published in an international magazine, ‘The Week’, earlier this month, Justice Katju wrote that “India has sown seeds for a large-scale guerrilla war in [occupied] Kashmir by stripping the territory of its special. Another report published by the United States highlighted the “downward trend” witnessed in religious freedom in India and accused New Delhi of “engaging in or tolerating religious freedom violations”. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Annual Report 2019 placed India on ‘Tier 2’ for actions it said “meet at least one of the elements of the systematic, ongoing, egregious standard for designation as a country of particular concern or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA)”.The report stated that “the growth of exclusionary extremist narratives — including, at times, the [Indian] government’s allowance and encouragement of mob violence against religious minorities have facilitated an egregious and ongoing campaign of violence, intimidation, and harassment against non-Hindu and lower-caste Hindu minorities.”  And persecution.” It further stated that PM Modi “seldom made statements decrying mob violence, and certain members of his political party have affiliations with Hindu extremist groups and used inflammatory language about religious minorities publicly”. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2072221/1-muslims-india-will-targeted-like-jews-germany-ex-indian-sc-judge-lays-bare-bjp-agenda/ #MusimsInIndia

3.      Muslim couple: Oct., 8, 2019: A Muslim couple, who was travelling to Haryana, was accosted by two youth at the Alwar bus stand when they were having dinner. The men, identified as Vansh Bharadwaj and Surendra Bhatia, beat up the husband for not chanting 'Ram-Ram'. They also allegedly stripped and made obscene gestures at the woman. Hearing the couple's cry for help, nearby people gathered and beat up the accused and took them to the police station. The couple has filed a complaint against the Bharadwaj and Bhatia at a women's police station in Alwar. https://www.indiatoday.in/crime/story/alwar-two-men-beat-up-muslim-couple-sexually-harass-woman-for-not-chanting-ram-ram-1606824-2019-10-07

4.      Bangladeshi Muslims: Oct., 10,2019: “Shah has brought to the fore the great communal divide of 1947,” Mesbah Kamal, one of the four participants in Democracy Now, told me over the phone from Dhaka. A professor of history, Dhaka University, Kamal was specifically referring to the Home Minister’s October 1, speech in Kolkata. In that speech, Shah declared that the NRC exercise will be undertaken in West Bengal, but those who are religious minorities in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan need not fear it as they will be protected from detention and deportation under the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which is scheduled to be enacted later this year. Ever since the updating of NRC for Assam began in full swing in 2015, Bangladeshis have been worried over its spill out. At the nub of their worry is Assam and India’s common sense that those excluded from the NRC are primarily Bangladeshis. Will India deport or dump them on Bangladesh? This question fans anxiety in Bangladesh as it is already reeling under the burden of hosting an estimated 1.1 million Rohingya refugees evicted from Myanmar. With a population density of 1115.62 persons per sq km, Bangladesh just doesn’t have space to accommodate more people. (India’s population density is 416 persons per sq km.) . Bangladeshis, regardless of their religious identity, think Shah’s NRC statements are a portent of the dark times ahead.  https://www.newsclick.in/Bangladeshis-Amit-Shah-Playing-Jinnah-Game

5.      Hindu nationalism: Oct., 18, 2019: By posturing Muslims as an entity that has conventionally posed a threat to the natural state of “Hinduness” in the subcontinent, Hindutva regards India as an inherently Hindu nation. Such a narrative not only otherises Muslims in India but also forms the basis for an exclusionary national narrative that focuses solely on the rights of Hindus. the world community must recognize the presence of Islamophobic elements within growing Hindu nationalism in India and that this is a threat not only to the political dynamics of the region but Muslim communities around the world. https://thediplomat.com/2019/10/the-kashmir-quagmire-rising-islamophobia-and-hindu-nationalism/

6.      Muslims in India: Oct., 19, 2019: The Kashmiris feel betrayed and cheated and even humiliated. Even the manner in which their leaders – the Hurriyat and even the elected mainstream politicians -- have been treated by the government of the day, has hit Kashmiri pride. Each day is a nerve-wracking day for Muslims, whose sheer survival is getting tougher. There is communal tension in the atmosphere, in and around mohallas, inside classrooms, along the highways. The fear runs so deep that ghettoisation is on the rise and so is withdrawal from public space. https://www.newsclick.in/Blatant-Omission-Muslims-New-India 

7.     Iqbal: Oct., 20, 2019: On Tuesday, the headmaster of a government-run primary school in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district was suspended because the students in his school had sung the song  Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua as part of their morning prayers. The suspension was ordered by the District Magistrate, acting on a complaint filed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The head of the local unit of the Hindutva organisation said that the complaint had been filed because the song is a “madrasa prayer” and the headmaster’s decision to allow it to be sung was “anti-national”. https://scroll.in/article/941012/up-headmasters-suspension-for-iqbal-poem-reflects-absurd-patriotic-tests-faced-by-indias-muslims  

8.        Ilhan Omar: Oct., 24, 2019: Alleging that Muslims have been targeted in Assam and asked to prove their citizenship in the name of the recently published National Register of Citizens (NRC), leading Congresswoman from Minnesota IIhan Omar raised a debate in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday. Modi and criticised Terming the present condition in Assam, which she said is as bad as Jammu and Kashmir, if not worst, Omar came down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre of trying to act against the interest of the Muslims. “In Assam, more than two million people have been asked to formally prove their citizenship. There is official statement that no Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs, or general refugees need to worry about their status. So, this is a clear anti-Muslim programme. The Indian government has started to build camps in Assam presumably to hold those who are unable to prove their citizenship. This is how the Rohingya genocide started,” Omar alleged.At one point, do we no longer share values with India or we are waiting for the Muslims in Assam to be put in those camps, she questioned the House  Over 19 lakh people were excluded in the NRC, published on October 31, 2019 in Assam, out of a total of 3.29 crore people who applied for inclusion of their names in the final list. https://www.eastmojo.com/assam/2019/10/23/nrc-debate-in-us-house-congresswoman-concerned-over-muslims-fate

9.       Muslim hacked to death: Oct., 2, 2019: An Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) worker was hacked to death while on his way to a mosque in India’s southwestern state of Kerala. According to Gulf News, the incident took place in Tanur town on Thursday, October 24. Earlier this month, Amnesty International reported that 181 incidents of hate crimes were recorded in the first half of this year. This was a steep rise since 2015. The count is almost double that of the same period last year, when 100 such cases were recorded. Over two-thirds of the victims were targeted because they were Dalits, while 40 of them suffered on account of their Muslim identity. In 37 reported incidents, the victims were killed, according to the report. In 30 cases, victims were raped or sexually assaulted, with sexual harassment in another 19 cases. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2087617/9-muslim-man-hacked-death-india/  

Monthly update September 2019 : Muslims in India

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1.       Mosque blast: Sep., 20, 2019: In April 2018 a court acquitted all 11 men charged by the NIA in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case where six people, all Muslims, were killed in the southern city of Hyderabad. The NIA had in its probe found that members of the Abhinav Bharat, including  Samjhauta Express blast suspect Swami Aseemanand, were responsible for the blast. But eventually, the court deemed the strong body of evidence previously presented by the investigating agency insufficient to declare the accused guilty. The NIA did not attempt to appeal the decision or continue the investigation. In December 2010 - January 2011, Aseemanand made a series of confessions to the courts admitting his role in the blasts targetting Muslims. A few months later, he retracted these confessions, claiming that they had been extracted under torture. In 2014, however, speaking to a journalist for the news magazine Caravan, he denied being tortured and once again admitted to various acts of violence targeting Muslims. In the same interview, he also claimed that the plot to bomb Muslim targets across the country was blessed by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders Mohan Bhagwat and Indresh Kumar. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/samjhauta-acquittals-hindu-terror-unpunished-india-190327111755815.html

2.      Samjotha Express: Sep., 20, 2019:  The acquittal of the four main suspects in the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast case has once again brought the Indian government's commitment to fighting Hindu terror groups into question. The attack on the train also known as the "friendship express", which links India to Pakistan, left 68 persons dead. The majority of the victims were Pakistani citizens. An investigation by India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) eventually concluded that the attack was carried out by four men - Swami Aseemanand, Kamal Chauhan, Rajinder Chaudhary and Lokesh Sharma - linked to the Hindu far-right group Abhinav Bharat. However, on March 20 this year, a special court in the northern state of Haryana acquitted all four suspects, citing lack of evidence.

3.       Pregnant woman stripped: Sep., 20, 2019: Indian police in Assam last week stripped and tortured a pregnant Muslim woman and her two sisters at a police outpost in the Darrang district of the restive state, according to   New Indian Express. The pregnant Muslim woman suffered severe injuries as a result of the beatings, and was admitted to hospital where her pregnancy was terminated. She blamed the police for the loss of her baby. A probe has been ordered against officials involved in the torture. According to the New Indian Express, the gruesome incident took place on September 8, but only came to light on Tuesday after the victims had approached the media as the authorities did not register a case despite a complaint lodged by the victims. Police had rounded up the three sisters - namely Minuwara Begum, Sanuwara and Rumela – from Guwahati in connection with a kidnapping case. The women were taken into custody from their homes and tortured at the police the whole night. “We were brutally beaten up with sticks. My pregnant sister had pleaded to spare her as she was carrying a baby in her womb but Mahendra Sarma said we were acting. She lost the baby due to the assault,” one of the sisters of the pregnant woman told New Indian Express. Hate crimes against Muslims are on the rise in India as the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pursues a Hindu-supremacist foreign and domestic policy. https://www.geo.tv/latest/247992-indian-police-strip-torture-pregnant-muslim-woman-in-assam

4.       Muslim boy burned: Sep.,20,2019: A Muslim teenager has claimed he was set on fire by a gang after he refused to chant a Hindu slogan in the Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh, India.The 15-year-old boy said he was kidnapped by four men who poured kerosene on him and set him alight after telling him to chant “Jai Shri Ram”, Outlook India reports.The Indian magazine said the boy was left in a critical condition with 60 per cent burns over his body.  . https://revivalnews.net/2019/07/29/muslim-teenager-set-on-fire-in-india-after-refusing-to-chant-hindu-slogan/?fbclid=IwAR1U-e7YHW9b_-ieN5gQaKfZDyvzFJi3OFuwlG2OgKiouTtlynjNM28Cao0

5.       Khan: Sep., 22, 2019: In this way, he had built a life for himself and his family in distant lands, which he made his own. But one day, suddenly, it all ended. The paramilitary soldiers asked them to hide under a folding bed, and said they were powerless to prevent the crowd from breaking into the camp. Armed with sticks, steel rods and spears, they stormed into the camp. All the soldiers ran away. At one point, Khan stuck his face out from the bed below which they hid, to see where the crowds were. One of the rioters smashed his head with a steel rod. His companions were to recall the horror later in graphic, stomach-churning detail, of how his skull cracked open and his brain spilled out. https://www.dawn.com/news/1506487

6.      Gyanvapi mosque: Sep., 23, 2019: the Hindu Right has laid claim to the land of the famous Gyanvapi mosque in the Vanarsi city (also called Kansi), of the Utter Pradish state of India, based on the allegation, that, “in 1669, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb had razed the original Kashi Vishwanath temple at the centre of the city and erected a mosque atop it, named as the Gyanvapi mosque. The current structure of the temple was built on an adjacent site about 10 metres away from the mosque. As per the Caravan, India dated 27 April 2019, the famous Gyanvapi mosque is an old and historic worship place of the Muslims, that shares a boundary wall with the Kansi Vishwanath temple, which is otherwise located about 10 metres away from the mosque. The mosque and the temple, both are located on the western bank of the river Ganga.https://dailytimes.com.pk/470835/another-babri-mosque-like-episode-in-india-is-in-the-making/ 

7.      Assam: Sep., 26, 2019: Nearly two million people, mostly Muslims, in the northeastern state of Assam in India have been declared stateless in their own country thanks to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) released by the Indian Government. Citizenship applicants have less than four months to appeal in a very long-drawn, ill-equipped and biased system. If they lose the appeal, they face detention and deportation.   The NRC is yet another stick to beat Muslims with and a gimmick to catch votes and win elections. Amit Shah, Indian Home Minister, in one of his hate speeches during the last elections, said: “These infiltrators are eating away at our country like termites. The NRC is our means of removing them. http://muslimnews.co.uk/newspaper/top-stories/36404-2/  

8.      Nishrin Jafri Hussain: Sep., 28, 2019:  I was just 5 years old when I was a REFUGEE in the ShahAlam Refugee Camp in Ahemedabad in 1969. Ammi was just 27. In the overcrowded camps and the heat in those tents, I am sure Ammi had no time to think of celebrating my September birthday. I don’t remember that, but I do remember my young father carrying me, Ammi holding my 7 year old brothers hand and running behind with others in the dark on the train tracks while from far I could see the fire that was burning our little house. I will never forget the light that lit up the burning homes as we boarded the first coal train that stopped midway to take the hundreds who were running from the mob. The same light that burned her house again in 2002 and took the man she loved with it. This hate, when will it stop. Some wounds never heal.  “ALMOST EXACTLY fifty years ago, in September 1969, Gujarat experienced the worst communal riots the country had seen since Partition. Although incidents of violence erupted in different parts of the state, Ahmedabad, the epicentre, was the worst affected. After the riots ended, a commission led by Supreme Court judge P Jaganmohan Reddy was tasked with producing a report on what had caused the riots, how the administration had responded and what might be done to prevent such incidents in the future.“ . https://caravanmagazine.in/history/the-riots-that-changed-the-course-of-gujarats-political-history?fbclid=IwAR0GDcX-DvxjuDOZNfZ1uNJbvx1-vDXE78jWXFIwTx1JDCZZNvQyLJSgWO0

9.      Legal Issues: Sep. 29, 2019: Muslims are being targeted from all the directions. With respect to all its constitutional and legal rights in the country, it is becoming increasingly difficult to lead an individual, family, and social life. All political secular parties in the country are weakened by the ruling party. Their leaders are facing serious corruption cases. No one has the courage to speak out in favor of the minorities and talk about their legitimate demands. In this poisonous environment, the only way left for the Muslims is to recover their legitimate rights, justice, and fundamental human rights is through the judiciary only. Five types of cases are commonly encountered by the Muslims in General: (1) Terrorism Cases, —— (2) Personal Law and Endowment Cases —— (3) Fundamental Human Rights & Civil Rights Cases ———— (4) Criminal Cases (Mob Lunching, Cow-Rakhshak Crisis, & Baseless allegations). (5) Bail. For almost 30 years, innocent youth have been illegally detained in various areas and cities of the country for 10 to 20 years, based on terrorism charges. After passing their entire life in prison, 95% of them were released with full honor & respect but their life is lost. They were arrested on charges of dangerous terrorism on the basis of widespread false assumptions. Hundreds of fake encounters were done without cause. In addition, the bloody riots in the country caused a great loss of life, honor, and property of the Muslims on a very large scale. Bomb blasts killed thousands of innocent civilians from the 1981 ‘Neilli’ Assam riots to the recent ” Muzaffarnagar riots, sectarian killers and bullying elements and their extremist organizations have been released with impunity & honored by RSS. Even ‘Samjhota Express’ Ajmer, Makkah Masjid, Blast accused Aseema Nand Swami (Jitendra Nath Chatterji), who had been given the highest RSS ‘Guruji Samman’ award, has been released.   since the BJP came to power, in most cases Muslims have suffered failure and deprivation of their constitutional fundamental rights.There is no legal platform of Muslims in the country that can handle all the legal issues and cases that have arisen on a large scale, to represent and do the necessary legal follow-up in the lower courts to the Supreme Court through the legal process under expert & experienced renowned, reputed, lawyers. In our community some of them are handling such cases on their own level, in the form of, social groups and welfare organizations and charities are helping to fight the legal cases . The Muslim Personal Law Board came into existence to handle 10 defined objectives, which do not cover all the issues of our community. Since the independence of our Country, NRC, FT, Kashmir 370 and the adoption of the ‘UAPA’ Amendment Bill, there has been a terrifying ‘legal tsunami’. The Muslims of India are not in a position to handle the millions of cruel criminal cases that need to be properly followed in the courts. Kashmiris are now among the common Indian Muslims like us, it is our duty to protect their legal and constitutional rights. According to valid reports, 40,000 Kashmiris have been arrested and shifted to different jails of the country so far, including 12,000 young children. The 12 amendments in the recent Parliament session to ‘UAPA’ include that if an officer even under the level of an inspector has doubt about a person that he is a terrorist or connected to a terrorist network, or if someone’s views in the opinion of the officer are like terrorists, the officer is fully authorized under’ UAPA’ to not only arrest such a person, but the ‘NIA’ has been given full authority to confiscate all his immovable and immovable properties. According to the same law, the accused cannot get bail for up to 2 years even though a writ has been filed against that person’s arrest in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is yet to issue its restriction or ‘STAY’ on it. Already, the ‘NRC’ cases in Assam have become beyond the endurance for Muslims. Then who is there to fight for the release of Kashmiris who should file a petition? Many serious legal issues have arisen; the judicial system in Kashmir has been completely shut down. Even most senior lawyers in the bar council are in police custody. The government does not want to talk to anyone, politicians, social and religious representatives at all, nor is it willing to take any action against the military atrocities on Kashmiris. The government has also announced that the process of distribution of property has begun. Then came the announcement that more than 50,000 temples would be opened. The gardens of most of the wealthy & financial institutions of the Kashmir are now have been transferred to the army as the owners have been arrested and the applications against the atrocities being committed by the armies are being rejected by the authorities. The worst military offensive in recent human history continues. The Hindu block has deprived the entire population of 9 million on a colonial pattern. At the end of his visit to Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad said that democracy in Kashmir has completely died. ‘UNDECLARED’ martial law is clamped on Kashmiri’s population, Kashmir will be devastated and soon Kashmiris will be forced to flee their homeland to save their lives and seek refuge where ever they can. All humanitarian, charitable, religious organizations and lawmakers of India, & those with humanitarian and moral values, have this great responsibility to launch their own efforts on a very large scale based on Humanitarian grounds to bring immediate relief to the Kashmiris through courts at large; otherwise, history is not going to forgive us.  ‘Mahmood Paracha’, a former Jameeat-e-Ulema lawyer, made many sensational revelations in one of his ‘TV’ interviews. “I have evidence of an organized crime against our community,” he said, referring to RSS and the country’s secret departments are in close relationship with Jameeat’. The Jameeat was forced to issue a notice of defamation but were silenced due to fear of community backlash on a large scale. Then the world watched how shamelessly the Jameeat has announced how they are standing by the side of the leadership of RSS and the Modi administration. The time has come for the Muslims in India to set aside part of their incomes to for the sake of the legal protection & fight their cases in the in a better manner in the courts of our country they should start constituting their ‘ Legal Aid’ companies otherwise even this opportunity will be lost.  https://thepolicytimes.com/muslims-face-new-legal-tsunami-in-india/