After two nights spent in police custody, Indian girl Fatima was released after she watched live footage of a bulldozer claw crashing into her family's home where she was born and raised on her phone.

Fatima's home is one of dozens of homes and businesses that have been flattened by bulldozers this year, in a campaign that Indian authorities have repeatedly touted as a "battle against illegal construction and a resolute response to criminal activity".

But rights groups condemned the "justice of the bulldozers" and saw it as an illegal practice and collective punishment by the Hindu nationalist government, noting that many of the victims of the campaign "have one thing in common."

19-year-old Fatima was arrested with her family, after her father was accused of orchestrating a large public protest in the northern Indian city of Allahabad last June.

It was one of several marches that took place across India last month, denouncing the provocative statements made by a spokeswoman for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) about the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) during a televised debate, which sparked outrage across the Muslim world.

On the day of Fatima's release, she was sitting in the living room of a relative's house, when she came across pictures of the destruction of her home on her mobile phone.

She said the demolition was a message to Muslims who criticize the government, adding, "They have sowed fear in an entire community... Everyone is now looking at our house, and they think that if this happens to us, it can happen to them too."

The governor of Uttar Pradesh invented the "bucket policy" that later spread to various Indian states (Reuters)


bulldozer policy

Uttar Pradesh (Birthplace of Fatima) is governed by Yogi Adityanath, a saffron-robed Hindu monk seen as a possible successor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in office, and defends the bulldozer as a symbol of his commitment to law and order and a potential tool to use against "rioters".

Adityanath's aides celebrated his successful campaign for re-election as state chief minister earlier this year, riding a bulldozer, while the bulldozer tattoo has become very popular among supporters of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Since then, the "policy of bulldozers" has spread elsewhere in the country, and demolition campaigns have taken off quickly in the wake of the outbreak of religious unrest.

And last April, a violent confrontation erupted between Hindus following a religious procession of Muslims during the month of Ramadan, after which authorities in Delhi demolished about 20 Muslim shop fronts, along with the front of a mosque, in defiance of a court order to stop.

Government officials say the series of demolitions are "legal, as they only target buildings that were built without legal approval."

However, the victims whose homes and property were demolished deny this claim, asserting that their homes are legal, and say that they were not given the legally required notice period to object to the demolition orders.

KK Ray, the lawyer for Fatima's father, said that Fatima's house was demolished "with hundreds of policemen and hundreds of cameras without any sympathy," adding, "There is no parallel to this cruelty."

Government critics say the crackdown is the latest manifestation of the BJP's discriminatory policies toward India's nearly 200 million Muslim minority community.

"They have an ideological obligation that in India they have to make Muslims second-class citizens, socially humiliate them and destroy their property," Ray said.

Amnesty International said last June that the demolitions were part of a selective and 'vicious' crackdown on Indian Muslims who dared speak out against the discrimination they face.

The Indian authorities deliberately leave the rubble of Muslim homes that are being destroyed to make them feel that they are untouchable (Reuters)

sleepless nights

Many Muslims living in Uttar Pradesh now fear their homes will be destroyed, after family members participated in protests last month.

"Now we are living in a period of anxiety and turmoil and we don't sleep at night," said Mohammad Javed, a resident of Saharanpur who received an order to vacate his house shortly after his brother's arrest, for participating in a demonstration in that city.

A week after Fatima's arrest, a bulldozer was parked outside the police station near her home, and the government left the house in bricks and concrete, to perpetuate the owners' sense of belonging to a pariah community.

Fatima remembers watching her home demolished in a live broadcast of a YouTube news channel, where her phone screen was filled with comments from the public praising the demolition.

"I was born there and spent my whole life there," says Fatima. "But it was clear that people were happy to see someone's house being destroyed."