Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2022, Hindus from Kairana, which has been the nest to the communal violence, have said that they will shut their businesses, pack their bags and leave Uttar Pradesh if BJP does not come back to power.
Varun Singhal, whose brother was shot dead by Mohammad Fukran in public amidst the exodus of Hindu families, said that they do not trust any other government and were ready to move out of Kairana again.
As actions shift to Kairana in the first phase of elections scheduled on February 10, a crucial ground report by the New Indian has revealed the true fear of the Hindu families who returned to Kairana after the mass migration during the period of 2014-16. Singhal, recalling the brutal crime against Hindus says that many Hindu families, before 2017 were forced to leave Kairana because of several incidences of extortion and murders.
“Atmosphere at the time was very tense and no trader felt secure. Shops used to shut early in the evening at around 6 pm those days. There was fear among the trader community”, he was quoted by the New Indian. Another person Sajan Kumar agreed and said that situation in Uttar Pradesh can never be as dangerous as it was before the BJP government came to power.
According to the report, Kairana local traders feel safe and secure under the BJP regime and do not want gangsters to overpower again at any cost. Before 2017, the traders say ‘murders and extortion used to happen every now and then. The Samajwadi Party used to support the gangsters to create fear in the minds of Hindu traders. Many of Hindus were killed for raising their voices against the murderers’.
Security of Hindus was reassured only after the Yogi Adityanath government came to power, adds trader Vijay Mittal. Reports mention that the BJP government has set up a permanent unit of UP Police’s Pradeshik Armed Constabulary (PAC) at Kairana’s Chowk Bazar, especially for the safety of Hindu traders and their families.
This report comes after the accused mastermind of the Hindu exodus, Samajwadi Party’s Nahid Hasan was arrested on January 15 under the Gangsters Act. Last week, Akhilesh Yadav had announced Hasan’s name for the Kairana seat but his sister Iqra Hasan has stepped up for the campaign as the Court rejected his bail yesterday. It is worth noting that Hasan and his mother, Tabassum Hasan have two dozens of long-pending cases over the last 20 years, all under the Gangster’s Act.
SP’s Nahid Hasan is converted, he was a Hindu-
BJP’s candidate Mriganka Singh told the New Indian that a century ago, there was only one gotra Kalansh Chauhan in Kairana, Uttar Pradesh. Some started preaching Islam and then forced many others to follow Islam. This is how people got converted. Even Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Nahid Hasan’s family was Hindu, she added.
“Hasan’s gotra was the same as Chaupal family of Kairana. Hasan’s family got converted into Islam, others remained Hindus,” Mriganka said. In 2017, Mriganka had lost to Nahid Hasan and to his mother Tabassum in the 2018 elections.
She also recalled the unfortunate incident of the Hindu exodus and said that it was a fearful situation for Hindu traders and businessmen. They were forced to leave Kairana and were left in fear, she said adding that nobody now wants ‘this MLA Nahid Hasan’ again.
Kairana Mass Migration episode-
In 2014, BJP MP Hukum Singh, who had won the Lok Sabha election from Kairana had claimed that close to 250 Hindus were forced to leave Uttar Pradesh and many of them were left in fear following murders and extortions in the area. The charges were ratified by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) who reported that Muslims in Kairana had tortured Hindu families, their females and were coerced to keep shut their mouth.
“The notorious leader Mukim Kala had committed at least 47 cases of robbery, murder, extortion, etc during the span of just 5 years between 2010 and 2015 in the states of UP, Haryana and Uttarakhand. The Hindu exodus had also forced into major demographic changes in the state”, the fact finding report by NHRC had stated.
Saharanpur MP Raghav Lakhanpal had also in 2016 compared the exodus of the Hindus in the town to that of the Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir. He had alleged that the population of Hindus in Kairana had then gone down to 8 per cent as compared to 52 per cent in 2001.
The primary reason behind the exodus of these Hindu families from Kairana in 2016 was the free reign of gangsters in the town. Most notable of them was Mukim Kala. For years the AK 47 wielding goons of his gang had created an absolute mockery of law and order in Kairana. Mukim Kala even owned a weapons warehouse. The arrest of Mukim Kala had little effect on the situation as he still continued to run his extortion racket from jail.
Things began to change only after Yogi Adityanath took over as the Chief Minister in UP. Under his government, the UP Police started cracking down on criminals like never before and several members of the Mukim Kala’s gang were either shot dead in encounters or arrested in rapid succession.
Kairana currently has about 1.6 million voters, 33 per cent out of which are Muslims, and rest Hindus and other religions.
