Haldwani, India – At about 6:45pm on February 8, Mohammad Arif known as his brother Zahid. A mosque and an Islamic college had been razed by authorities officers of their city of Haldwani in northern India, and violence had damaged out. The 52-year-old Arif wished his brother, seven years youthful, to return residence instantly from the iron and cement store he labored in.
Zahid rushed residence on his motorcycle and parked it outdoors the home. Unaware that the protest had turn out to be violent, Zahid hurried to purchase milk for his toddler grandchild.
When Zahid’s 16-year-old center son Mohammad Anas discovered that his father had gone out once more, he went searching for him within the cramped, dingy lanes of Haldwani’s Banbhoolpura space, a Muslim ghetto. The police shot the son within the abdomen within the lane, and the daddy within the chest 200 metres alongside the identical highway.
Zahid and Anas are amongst a minimum of six folks killed, together with 5 Muslims, in clashes that concerned mob violence and police firing. At the very least two dozen civilians and greater than 100 police personnel had been injured, a number of police automobiles had been burned and a police station was attacked within the fallout from protests in Haldwani, the newest web site of government-led demolitions in India concentrating on Muslim constructions.
The city’s municipal authorities bulldozed the buildings known as the Mariyam mosque, which might accommodate 500-600 worshippers, and the Abdul Razzaq Zakariya college in Malik ka Bagicha in Banbhoolpura on February 8, saying that that they had been constructed with out permission.
Residents mentioned the mosque and the college – inbuilt 2002 – have been unfairly focused, regardless of a courtroom listening to on the matter scheduled on February 14. The Quran, different non secular books and prayer mats are nonetheless buried below the rubble.
‘Demolition politically motivated’
When municipal authorities, accompanied by the police and bulldozers, got here to demolish the mosque and faculty, solely 25-30 ladies had been contained in the compound, mentioned 20-year-old Samreen Khanum, from behind her burqa.
They, and different residents who arrived quickly afterwards, tried urgent authorities to not demolish the constructions, “The Masjid is our Allah’s residence. We are able to’t see it getting Shaheed (martyred),” mentioned Samreen.
However the demolition began at about 4:30pm. In response to the police, residents threw stones at them and set automobiles on fireplace. The police then hurled tear gasoline shells and baton-charged the protesters to regulate the violence.
Nonetheless, the residents say that police lathi-charged (hit with sticks) the protesting ladies and tear gassed them, angering the protesters and making some resort to arson. Protesters additionally surrounded the police station. Samreen mentioned she was fasting and fainted through the teargassing. Her sister, Najma Khanum, 21, was additionally injured within the police melee.
Each sisters really feel that the demolition was politically motivated. “Why is it that solely our mosques are demolished each time? In the event that they need to take away encroachment they need to take away unlawful constructions like temples and never only a single mosque and madrasa [school] in a Muslim ghetto,” mentioned Najma.
Final month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a Hindu temple within the northern metropolis of Ayodhya, constructed on the location of a centuries-old Mughal-era mosque that was destroyed by Hindu zealots in 1992.
In 2023, the federal government of the state of Uttarakhand, the place Haldwani is predicated, said it had demolished greater than 300 Muslim shrines inside 90 days.
Even the minority cell of the Bharatiya Janata Get together, which guidelines Uttarakhand, the place Haldwani is predicated, and nationally in New Delhi, had protested in opposition to plans for the newest demolitions.
“The madrasa is utilized by poor youngsters and the outdated supply prayers on the mosque … we are attempting very exhausting to make the minority neighborhood get together with our get together … Conserving in thoughts the approaching elections and the curiosity of the get together, these constructions shouldn’t be demolished,” the BJP minority cell, which leads its outreach to Muslims, wrote in a February 3 letter to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.
Samreen and Najma at the moment are nervous about their 18-year-old brother Mohammad Ayan, who went out to promote greens on his cart on February 8 when the violence broke out. 4 days later, they’ve nonetheless not discovered him.
Shoot-on-sight orders, curfew and web shutdown
“We solely know that six folks have been killed. We don’t know if it’s our brother or pal. They aren’t letting us close to the our bodies or permitting us to establish them. Most of the our bodies are left unclaimed. They’ve reduce the web and we will’t even verify the names of the killed,” Samreen mentioned.
When Zahid’s eldest son, 22-year-old Mohammad Aman, discovered that his father and youthful brother had been shot, he and a pal went out to retrieve their our bodies. “Even after capturing my brother, policemen beat him with a baton. He tried to defend his father’s physique by mendacity on it however they beat him with the butt of a rifle,” Aman mentioned.
Zahid had already died when Arif, who lives 500 metres away, arrived at his residence, however his nephew was drenched in blood however nonetheless respiration. He claims police barred them from taking Anas to hospital. “If that they had allowed us to take him to the hospital, my nephew could be alive,” he mentioned, tearing up. The household tried to stem the circulation of blood with fabric and cotton borrowed from neighbours.
Whereas the police declare that their response was pushed by violent assaults on them by protesters, the households of lots of these killed insist their kinfolk weren’t even concerned within the protests.
“My father went to purchase milk and my brother went to search for him,” mentioned Aman, Zahid’s son who tried to rescue his father and brother. “So why had been they killed?”
Following the incident, authorities in Haldwani issued shoot-on-sight orders, imposed a curfew, suspended web companies, closed colleges, and banned giant gatherings – even for Jummah prayers in congregation.
The following morning, February 9, at about 9am, an ambulance arrived at Zahid’s home to move the our bodies of Zahid and Anas to the Dr Susheela Tiwari Authorities Hospital, the place they had been declared lifeless and brought to the mortuary, the place a postmortem was carried out on the our bodies.
By 10pm, that they had been buried within the presence of 5 members of the family in addition to law enforcement officials. Through the burial, Arif mentioned that after they went to bury his brother and nephew, they found the our bodies of one other three folks killed through the violence that had been buried in unmarked graves. “They (police) didn’t permit us to movie the funeral with our telephones. We had been solely allowed to make use of the torch lights on our telephones,” he claimed.
Guddu Altaf, 47, who runs a carpentry store close to the town’s cemetery, mentioned households of these killed within the violence contacted him to make picket planks for the graves. “I made planks for six graves … 5 for individuals who had been shot and one who died of a coronary heart assault through the violence,” he mentioned.
Mob allegedly burns Muslim properties
Some 700 metres away from Zahid’s residence, Faeem Qureshi, 30, a items automobile driver and father of two youngsters – a daughter aged seven and a son, six – was killed outdoors his residence by a few of his personal neighbours in Gandhinagar.
The locality is dominated by members of the Valmiki caste, which is close to the underside of Hinduism’s complicated caste hierarchy. The Gandhinagar neighbourhood had solely eight Muslim properties.
On February 8, a 200-strong Valmiki mob torched Qureshi’s home, mini truck, scooter and bike, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky. Qureshi suffered three bullet wounds and was declared lifeless on arrival on the hospital, mentioned Javed, his brother.
In response to Javed, Qureshi pleaded with the Valmiki mob to not burn his automobiles parked in entrance of the residence. However the attackers threw petrol bombs and when Qureshi hurried downstairs to douse the flames with a bucket of water, he was shot lifeless.
The district Justice of the Peace of Nainital, Vandana Singh, informed reporters that the Haldwani violence incident was not communal. “I request all people to not make it communal or delicate,” she mentioned. Haldwani falls below the Nainital district.
Nonetheless, the victims’ households say the attackers had been shouting aggressive slogans linked to Hindu majoritarianism, and hurling abuse in opposition to Muslims. Javed alleged that the police stood about 50 metres away from the Valmiki mob and took no motion.
Al Jazeera spoke with Mohammad Furqan, 41, the uncle of Mohammad Shaban, 23, a shopkeeper from Machli Bazaar who was allegedly killed in police fireplace.
“After the demolition, when the riot occurred, Shaban closed his store and whereas coming residence he was shot,” Furqan mentioned. He was declared lifeless in hospital.
Furqan additionally mentioned about three dozen policemen had been now stationed outdoors Shaban’s residence. “Even we aren’t permitted inside the home. Police hold harassing us,” he claimed.
Nazir Hussain, 42, owns a tailoring enterprise in Haldwani. On the night of February 8, the identical Valmiki mob that attacked Qureshi additionally set fireplace to his residence, which is 2 homes from Qureshi’s. The properties of three of Hussain’s kinfolk had been additionally torched and looted.
“My household barely survived by climbing onto our neighbour’s terrace. I used to deal with my neighbours [Valmiki] like household, however they betrayed us and tried to kill us,” Hussain mentioned, including that he had suffered a lack of as much as 800,000 Indian rupees, or $9,600.
Worry of arrest, demolition
Yunus Raza, 33, lay on a mattress within the jap finish of Indira Nagar, a neighbourhood close to the railway tracks, in a darkish one-bedroom home with unplastered partitions and a tin sheet roof. The proper leg of his trousers was torn as much as the knee and coated in blood. There was an unclean bloodied bandage on his proper leg the place a bullet had struck him. His six-month-old toddler slept close by on his facet.
Raza had gone out to purchase milk for his child on the night of February 8. However on the dairy store, he received caught up in a stampede that he mentioned started when police began baton-charging folks. He was shot in the appropriate leg. “The police shot me, and I fell unconscious. Folks picked me up and took me residence,” he mentioned.
“I’m poor. I can not afford to go to a non-public hospital and there are policemen on the authorities hospital,” he mentioned.
Although Raza insists he was not part of the protests in opposition to the police, legislation enforcement businesses in India have a protracted historical past of disproportionately arresting Muslim males after any clashes – together with folks unrelated to the precise violence. At the very least 30 folks have been taken into custody thus far because the clashes, and witnesses say all arrests thus far have been made in Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods.
“If I am going out, they are going to arrest me and throw me in jail,” Raza mentioned.
His household faces an unsure future as their sole earner is bedridden for the following few months. “How will I feed my youngsters?” requested Raza, a building labourer in Haldwani.
Dhami, Uttarakhand’s chief minister, mentioned the federal government would take the “strictest motion in opposition to rioters and miscreants”.
“Police have been given clear directions to deal strictly with unruly components,” he mentioned in an announcement. “Each rioter who indulged in arson and stone pelting is being recognized. No miscreant who disturbs concord and peace will likely be spared.”
However whereas Muslims have been the principal victims of the Haldwani violence, the neighborhood fears that they is likely to be the targets of motion by Dhami’s authorities too.
The environment of mistrust between Haldwani’s authorities and the city’s Muslims has a historical past.
In January final 12 months, widespread protests erupted within the city after authorities ordered the demolition of nearly 4,000 Muslim homes that had allegedly encroached on land owned by the state-run railways. The drive was stayed by the Supreme Court docket, which mentioned 50,000 folks “can’t be uprooted in a single day”.
Guddu Ansari, 36, a blacksmith and resident of Malik ka Bagicha, a smaller neighbourhood the place the mosque and madrasa had been positioned, fears that now the federal government may ship bulldozers to demolish their properties as effectively.
Dhami introduced on Monday that his authorities plans to assemble a police station on the land the place the college and mosque stood.
Rights teams have prior to now accused the BJP of utilizing bulldozers to illegally demolish the properties and companies of individuals accused of violence.
In two reports printed collectively this week, the human rights group Amnesty Worldwide documented the “punitive” demolition of a minimum of 128 Muslim properties from April to June 2022, rendering a minimum of 617 folks both homeless or with out livelihoods.
In response to the police, 30 folks have been arrested thus far and three FIRs (police complaints) have been lodged in opposition to 5,000 unidentified folks.
“No one needs to speak; everyone seems to be terrified,” mentioned Javed Siddique, a distinguished native politician who was arrested by authorities simply hours after talking with Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera contacted Nainital’s Senior Superintendent of Police, Prahlad Narayan Meena in regards to the allegations levelled in opposition to police however acquired no response. Al Jazeera additionally sought remark from the district Justice of the Peace of Nainital, Singh, however is but to obtain any.
Again at residence, Arif mentioned he was unwilling to file a criticism over the killings of his brother and nephew. “Who can we file the criticism in opposition to? The police? My brother and nephew had been each killed by police bullets. There is no such thing as a justice right here. They’re treating us unjustly as a result of we’re Muslim,” he mentioned.
