‘Hindu ko maar rahe hai ji’, said Gopal while his shaky voice gave away what he truly felt – fear, uncertainly and unbridled pain – pain, of the Delhi anti-Hindu riots creating a situation where a devout man had to hide every symbol that gave away his religion.
On Wednesday morning, Gopal sat cleaning his bike. With a bucket of water that had almost turned grey with bits of papers floating on it. The cloth he used dripped with the tepid water that almost engulfed the windshield of his bike. Gopal, a towering figure at almost 6 feet almost never cleaned his bike. That job was given to his younger brother, Shiv. With a pensive look on his face, Gopal almost robotically kept scrubbing his now already clean bike.
While Gopal scrubbed his bike, his wife paced the house, aimlessly collecting small things and lining them all up on a large table. Bread. Her little Ganesha statue. A couple of towels. Their family photo. The papers to the house.
Read: Delhi riots: Petrol Bombs, crates of stones found stored on AAP councillor Tahir Hussain’s rooftop
“I wanted to leave, but Jaffrabad is not far away. Beech main Masjid hi Masjid hai. Kaise jaye?”, she told me.
Jaya was not wrong. The Hindu majority area of Maujpur is surrounded by Mosques, which the Hindus of the area believe are instrumental in inciting violence against the community.
The anti-Hindu riots that have gripped Delhi, with Islamist mobs running a rampage, have several Hindus residing in the heart of the riots scared and helpless. Gopal stays in Maujpur with his family – his wife, his younger brother, his ageing mother and a 6-year-old daughter. Maujpur, which is essentially a Hindu dominated area saw widespread violence that essentially emanated from Jaffrabad, Brahmapuri neighbouring Muslim majority area.
While the riots raged on, a walking distance away from Gopal’s house, Vinod Kumar was mercilessly murdered on the night of 24th February. On his way to the medical shop on a bike along with his son, who escaped narrowly with serious injuries, Vinod Kumar was beaten and killed. Videos emerged where Vinod’s lifeless body was being dragged away from the spot where his bike was up in flames. In the distance, one could hear the chilling chants of a mob – Allah Hu Akbar, Nara e Taqbeer.
Vinod was killed by a murderous Islamist mob, according to his son, because of the Jai Shree Ram sticker on his bike. He said he saw no other reason for this unprovoked attack on his father and him.
In another video, one can hear the person shooting the video say, “Dekhiye, Muslimo ka ye haal, Hinduon ka kar diya jeena behaal. Ek laash bheji gayi hai Musalmano ki taraf se hamare Hindu bhai ki. Bhahampuri gali number ek mein. Le jao laash, aisi laashein uthengi poori raat, aisa sandesh diya hai…”.
Vinod and his family heard about the murder in horror on 25th. Within that 10 kilometre radius, the news of every death, every stone pelted, every dead body sent Hindu families scampering in horror, talking about their next course of action, if push comes to shove. Gopal’s family was no different.
While Gopal’s wife, gripped with fear, started collecting items she might need if they had to flee, Gopal, almost choking, started scrubbing off the Shri Ram sticker on his bike. ‘Chhoti bacchi hai meri, Vinod ka sunna na aapne, isko dekh ke (Shri Ram sticker on his bike) Mohammaden aa gaye to kya karenge’, he told me. “Aaj Hinduon ka ye haal hain ki Ram ka naam nahi le sakte, jala ke maar dete hai”, Gopal, with a heavy voice and a heavier heart said.
Read: 18 FIRs filed, 106 people arrested in connection with North-East Delhi violence: Police
The Hindus in Maujpur are living in the constant fear of being attacked by the Islamist mob. Despite what the media is trying to project, the nature of the violence and Islamists targetting Hindus is a clear plot that emerges. According to Intelligence Agency reports, Islamist organisation PFI and Bhim Army have been suspected to be behind the anti-Hindu riots in these areas.
Not too far away from Maujpur, Ankit Sharma, IB sleuth was mercilessly tortured and murdered. He was allegedly dragged into AAP MLA Tahir Hussain’s house and was lynched to death by a Muslim mob. A journalist was shot at by Islamists in the Maujpur area itself. And Islamist Shahrukh had also opened fire in the Bhajanpura area, not far away from Shahdara.
While Gopal scrubbed his faith in Lord Ram from the windshield of his bike, in Chandbagh, from where IB sleuth Ankit Sharma’s body was recovered from a drain, another Hindu family lived in fear. Harsh, after hearing about the merciless lynching of Ankit Sharma, sat in his room and cut off his Kalawa – the red sacred thread his grandmother tied on his wrist every other day – for protection.
“The moli (Kalawa) that I tie for protection, can get me killed now, just like Ankit”, he told me, enraged. Oscillating between being overtaken with anger and overwhelming grief, Harsh raved against the “Mohammaden mob” that is now “turning Delhi into Syria”. “Humari yahi aukaar reh gayi hai ma’am, chhupte fire, sir jhuka ke jeena seekhe”, he says, with the volume of his voice increasing in the memory of his foregone Kalawa. “Mere dost ne apne Rudraksh hata diya, ma’am. Aastha kahi nahi jaate, par jaan bachani hai abhi”.
When asked how they planned to protect themselves, Harsh said that he sleeps with a knife under his bed and any stick that they could find is stacked next to every person in the family. “Behen betiyon ko bhi laathi pakdani padi hai. Mohammadan aayenge to sabse pehele unhe khatra hai. Hume maar denge to ya to wo bach le, ya khud ko maar le, aisa bola hai unhe”, he says.
Men prepared to die and women of the house prepared to fight or die themselves if the “Mohammaden mob” comes for them is a story not uncommon with Hindu families living in fear since the Delhi anti-Hindu riots broke out. The media, on the other hand, is busy in painting these riots as a pogrom against Muslims, incited by “rabid Hindus”. The very Hindus who are now being recovered from gutters are cutting off their Kalawa and wiping off any symbol of their faith that can make them a target to the Muslim mobs.
Note: These stories are of Hindus living in fear, but there are families devastated who have lost their near and dear ones. OpIndia will try to bring more such stories, as the mainstream media is focusing only on a particular section to paint Hindus as aggressors
