Keshav Saxena, the minor Hindu boy was missing after the mob left the Durga temple lane. Shockingly, the police did not take the family’s complaint on the night of 30 June and made it wait till late evening even on the next day, the locals said.
Mona Saxena, the mother of the missing boy named Keshav, reportedly showed Swarajya a copy of the FIR that was registered around 9 pm on 1 July. In Opindia ground report, we had also reported that his parents were extremely distressed over his plight. His father had even threatened to commit suicide if he didn’t return safely. The mainstream media tried its best to hush up the entire matter and totally ignored the fact that a boy was missing.
The mother said that some unknown Muslim men had taken away her son from home around 11:30 pm. The men entered the colony vandalising the temple and shouting “Allahu Akbar”, and began thrashing the residents. She said that her son was sleeping inside the house and he was taken away by some Muslim men. The statement further said that she was very worried about her son and the police should act against this “terrorism”.
The police booked the alleged kidnappers under IPC sections 363 (kidnapping), 452 (house-trespass) and 34.
“My son had intervened when Gupta and that Muslim man were fighting. The Muslim man had even slapped him. My son had come home, changed his clothes and gone off to sleep,” Mona told Swarajya.
The alleged kidnap of the minor boy, who had quit school to financially support the family, had shocked the colony and pushed them into worse fear. The boy had returned after three days, and he had said that he was rescued by an elder Muslim person.
The Hindu Migration
The residents of Durga temple lane fear that the local Muslims want even the 50-odd Hindu families living among a thousand Muslim families in Lal Kuan to leave so they can “take over” the entire area. According to the Hindus, the locality had a large number of Hindu families in the 1980s but constant curfews and violence triggered their migration. The latest clash could further drive them away, they added.
“If they shout Allahu Akbar and break our temples, or abuse our community for no reason, then naturally Hindus will migrate out. There are many families that are seriously considering the option now,” one resident said.
Another woman said there was no recent history of any clashes between the two communities in the area. “We exchange sweets at festivals. Some of their men come to our colony to burst crackers on Diwali. I don’t know what’s got into them,” she said.
Nevertheless, the desecration incident of June 30 may be a tipping point in their decision to migrate from the Lal Kuan. The Hindu families complain that they do not enjoy religious freedom at par with the Muslim majority which is degrading to them as a community.
“We haven’t organised a Jagran in many years. Police don’t give us permission. We can’t get even half of the road for our religious functions while Muslims occupy the entire streets on their festivals. We have to be careful with our crackers on Diwali and watercolours on Holi while they roam with swords on Muharram without any fear,” a resident said. “A few years ago, our youth tried to organise a Sandhyaon the road. Police made us wrap up by 10 pm,” he complained.
Hauz Qazi limping to Normalcy
The constant efforts by some sections of the ‘liberal-secular’ media and opinion-makers to downplay the incident and claim that there was no hate crime involved is busted by this Swarajya ground report.
On Tuesday, a team of Swarajya had visited Lal Kuan to ascertain the actual status of the locality. The report said Lal Kuan resembled a militarized zone due to heavy security. Reportedly, more than 1,000 Delhi Police and paramilitary personnel armed with anti-riot gear have been deployed. The police have put barricades on the main road separating Muslim and Hindu crowds numbering in hundreds, chanting “Allahu Akbar” and “Jai Shri Ram” at each other in a game of competitive sloganeering. The market was shut.
Speaking to several members, Swarajya reported that the Muslim crowd surprisingly expressed ignorance of the temple desecration. Shakeel Ahmed, a local, said that all he knew was that two men fought over parking and some people gathered outside the police station. He said he had not heard of the temple vandalism.
Several men dismissed the vandalism and put the blame on Hindus themselves. Few others claimed that it could be the design of the “outsiders”. “Who knows who vandalised the temple. It could be Hindus doing it themselves to give us a bad name,” said one resident. Another said that no real Muslim would desecrate the place of worship of another religion and thus it seemed like a handiwork of “BJP-RSS”.
A local resident named Rakesh Khanna (name changed) whose family migrated here from Lahore after partition, said he wasn’t surprised at all. “Partition kiya inhone, blame karte hain Hinduon ko. Kashmir se Panditon ko nikala inhone par kehte hain ki khud bhaag gaye. Abhi mandir toda aur bol rahe hain Hinduon ne toda (They did the partition but blamed it on Hindus. They threw pandits out of Kashmir but say they migrated on their own. Now they vadalise a temple and again blame Hindus for it),” he said to Swarajya.
He added that normalcy is yet to return in the locality and there is an attempt to impose normalcy by force, but no such thing on ground existed. “If the situation was normal, would there be hundreds of security personnel here?” he said.
Khanna, on the other hand, asked, “Ekta hoti to mandir todte? (If there was unity, would they break our temple?” He said that Lal Kuan has about 5 per cent Hindus as against 95 per cent Muslims and that if Hindus from elsewhere in Chandni Chowk had come to stand up with the community, they could not be labelled as “outsiders”.
It’s clear that tempers in both the Hindu and the Muslim communities are high and it would take a lot to restore normalcy.
Men from both sides said that the talk of Hindu-Muslim unity in the area was a farce. One Mohammad Zahid said that “Muslims” were being lynched everywhere in the country and the community won’t take it lying down.
