Incidents of communal violence in India rose by nearly a quarter in the first five months of this year compared to the same period in 2014, the Economic Times reports. The newspaper, citing data from India’s Home Ministry, also reported a rise in deaths from communal violence, which rose from 26 between January and May 2014 to 43 over the same period this year. Outbreaks of communal violence, meanwhile, rose from 232 during the first five months of 2014, when a Congress Party–led coalition government was in power in New Delhi, to 287 over the same period this year. The Congress Party–led administration was displaced in last year’s national elections in May by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party led by the country’s current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.The Economic Times said officials at India’s Home Ministry blamed the recent rise in communal violence to the failure of state governments in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra and West Bengal to keep a check on sectarian tension. The data shows that There is a clear nexus between anti-minorities’ policies of the incumbent BJP Government led by a known extremist, who was denied entry by the United States for years because of his undeniable involvement in massacre of hapless Muslims in Gujarat, and the rise in anti-Muslim incidents. This is not figment of imagination but the date compiled by the Indian Home Ministry confirms increase in communal violence in the current year. In all, 287 communal incidents were report in the first five months of the year and in one such incident in Jamshedpur curfew had to be imposed on Wednesday after 30 people, mostly Muslims were injured and their shops and businesses ransacked by lunatic Hindus. The trouble started when three motorcycle-borne men tried to snatch the scarves off some Muslim girls. The men also brandished pistols and knives and hurled abuses at people who reacted angrily. Muslims have faced targeted violence all along during the last over six decades but they are unable to forget what happened to them during riots of 1984 in Delhi, in 2002 in Gujarat, in 2008 in Kandhmal, and in 2013 in Muzaffarnagar besides incidents like demolition of historic Babri mosque and bombing and burning of Samjotha Express. India was once proud of its non-aligned and secular credentials but what an irony that the butcher of Muslims in Gujarat was prized with the Prime Ministership of the country.
pk.shafaqna.com
