On Saturday, August 26, 2023, a Hindu family making ganpati idols was attacked by Muslim men in Rajkot. A complaint has been lodged at Rajkot Taluka police station in this regard. Police registered a case and arrested the three accused Amin, Rafiq and Sameer.
Kishan Rathod, hailing from Rajasthan and residing in Rajkot, earns his livelihood by crafting Ganpati idols. He lodged a police complaint, leading to the subsequent registration of the FIR. A copy of the FIR is in the possession of OpIndia.
Kishan Rathod lives with the family by renting a place next to the Gurukripa factory in Shaktinagar on Dholra Road in Rajkot and works there to make Ganpati idols. The owner of this place is a person named Irfan. Hindu families have been living here for the past three months to make idols.
On 26th August 2023, at around 10 PM, when Kishan Rathod was painting the idols, Amin Habib Sama, a resident of the Rasulpura area of Rajkot, along with two of his associates, came there and started shouting at him. The trio started breaking the idols and insulted him.
When the three men suddenly started vandalising the idols, the Hindu family resisted the assailant Muslim men and asked them to leave themselves. However, Amin and his accomplices started beating the members of the Hindu family and hit Kishan Rathod’s brother-in-law with an iron pipe.
As the situation deteriorated, Kishan Rathod reached out to Naseemben who happens to be the sister-in-law of Irfan Siddiqui who owns the place.
Upon Naseemben’s arrival, she too faced verbal abuse from Amin and his accomplices. The aggressors also inflicted damage upon a vehicle. Ultimately, Kishan Rathod dialled 100 to alert the police, and a responding team promptly arrived on the scene. Seeing the police’s arrival, the attackers fled.
The police initiated a case under sections 447, 294(b), 323, 295, 427, and 114 of the IPC, along with section 135 of the Motor Vehicles Act. Subsequently, a comprehensive investigation was launched, leading to the swift apprehension of the three culprits within a short span of time. The individuals in question have been identified as Amin Habib Sama, Rafiq Ismail Mansuri, and Sameer Yusuf Shahmadar.
The victim of the attack, Kishan Rathod, also spoke to OpIndia and narrated the story. He said he had no enmity with the attacker trio and did not know why they had attacked him. Besides, he also said that the group of assailants had earlier pelted stones at his living place and hurled abuses and threatened him. They then came and attacked him.
He further said, “Around 9.30 PM, as we were preparing to work, a group of people on a nearby street were shouting loudly and abusing. After a while, they threw stones at one of the poles near our stall and threatened us saying, ‘Get out, get out’. Our stall was locked but we continued next door. In a few minutes, they came there and started making a ruckus.”
Rathod further said, “When they came in, they started beating one of my artisans and injured him. I then fell down and released him and begged them not to do so, but they did not agree and continued the vandalism by saying, ‘Do whatever you can, we will break everything’. I then moved aside and informed the police. Later, when the police arrived, they fled.”
When asked if there was any quarrel with the attackers earlier, Kishan Rathod said, “We have no enmity with anyone nor have I ever had any kind of conversation with them. We are poor people, we make a living by making idols of God. We don’t have any kind of fight with anyone. I don’t know why they did this to us. It may be that they may have a dispute with those who own this place but I am not even aware of that for sure.”
Rathod also said that the children and women of the house were also present when the attack took place. He added, “We are hard-working men, not carrying weapons or anything. We have never got into a fight with anyone.”
He further said, “Not only have we lost thousands of rupees, but as a Hindu, our feelings have also been hurt by the vandalism of the idol of our God. We had been working hard for many days and now this happened now when just twenty days were left for the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. We have suffered a lot.”
“Our only demand is that the accused should be sent to jail and an example should be set by taking strict action so that they do not commit such an act again,” he said.
