Earlier this month a 55-year old Muslim man in Aligarh was brutally thrashed in his house by the people of his community for reading Hindu religious texts, Ramayana and Bhagwad Geeta. The victim named Dilsher Khan who works as a security guard was returning home from duty when the incident happened. A case was registered against the accused under sections 298, 323, 452, 504 and 506 of the IPC.
According to a report of Swarajya, two accused named Sameer and Zakir who were arrested in this case recently were let out on bail. The accused live less than a hundred meters away from Khan’s residence. The victim reportedly is now feeling unsafe after the accused got out on bail. However, they have not yet approached Khan after being released on bail.
As per the report when Khan was asked whether he informed the police about his safety concerns he replied in negative. Khan who earns less than Rs 10,000 said that he could not afford security at his house. “I earn less than Rs 10,000 which barely supports my family of wife and five children. I have no money to sustain full-time guards deployed at my house who would need to be fed and served tea from time to time,” he asserted.
Khan alleged he was still being harassed by his neighbours. He said two men have been harassing him for some time now and that people from his neighbourhood have been confronting him on streets in a mob. “It is always a mob. At times they confront me in the streets and get violent and abusive. However, this was the first time they went so far as to barge into my house.”
Calling his neighbours as illiterates, he pointed out their intolerance towards Hindu texts. “It is good to learn about other religions,” he added.
Fed up with the repeated harassment, he wants to sell his two-room house in Mehfooz Nagar and move to his native village Kailora in Hathras District. “Ours is a Brahmin-Thakur village. My late father Phool Khan is a highly respected figure there. The only problem is the lack of employment. That’s why I moved out in the first place. But people in this colony (Mehfooz Nagar) are too repulsive to live with,” he asserted.
Khan said that he had visited his native village a couple of days ago to inquire the land rates and the possibility of employment.
