A report published by The Diplomat newspaper confirmed that Muslims in Khambhat district in the Indian state of Gujarat are suffering greatly from attacks by Hindu extremists, in light of the clear bias of the police, and human rights organizations ignoring their suffering.

The newspaper said that the region is a stronghold of the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, despite its failure to win there in the recent elections, as the candidate of the Indian National Congress Party was able to achieve victory after the Muslims supported him.

The Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party is known for its anti-Muslim and spreading hatred for more than 3 decades.

Former Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, in a speech in Khambhat, bragged about the demolitions carried out by the Bharatiya Janata Party in Muslim areas, which angered Muslims.

The demolitions extended to mosques, shrines and homes.

The newspaper quoted human rights activist Hudhaifa Yogini as saying that Khambhat has become, since 1990, a stronghold for supporters of the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, and since then extremist Hindu nationalists have spread in the region, and their racist practices against Muslims in particular have intensified.


sectarian violence

The Diplomat confirmed that Khambhat Muslims have been suffering from sectarian violence for decades, at a time when human rights organizations and the police ignore their situation.

The newspaper quoted a 50-year-old Muslim woman who suffered for a long time with Hindu crowds, who worked to vandalize and burn her house many times, the last of which was in 2020. ), which are Hindu extremist organisations.

Hindu extremists justify their destructive actions with illogical reasons, such as accusing Muslim youth of harassing Hindu girls, only to start throwing stones at Muslim homes and setting them on fire, as stated in the testimony of Shani Ahmed, an Indian Muslim citizen from Akbarpur.


The report indicated that Hindus usually resort to other devious methods in order to provoke Muslims, such as storming Muslim-majority areas, and launching loud music in front of mosques, to justify the subsequent attacks on them and the arrests that affect many of them.

The suffering of Muslims does not stop at that, but also includes their trade and business.

A gathering attended the Ram Navami Hindu festival vandalized Muslim property, mosques and Islamic shrines, as well as destroying booths and carts owned by Muslims, as happened with Muhammad Malik (70 years), who turned his grocery store, which he owned for more than 40 years, into rubble.


sabotage

The newspaper confirmed that the attacks and the destruction of property that affected Muslims in the city of Akbarpur, for example, prompted Indian Muslims to build their homes with two doors to escape from the Hindu attacks.

The residents also asserted that the municipality took advantage of the riots and demolished - in a selective manner - Muslim-owned kiosks outside the Dargah area, without notifying the owners of the kiosks of the demolition decisions.

They explained that the authorities not only demolished the kiosks, but also destroyed the land on which they were built to prevent them from rebuilding what was demolished.


The police are biased

According to the "The Diplomat" report, the role of the police is not only negative, but rather biased towards Hindus in many cases, as most of these riots took place in broad daylight and with an intense police presence.

The report stated that the police arrested, in one of the protests, an Indian Muslim youth named Muhammad Taha (22 years old), along with 11 other Muslim youths, under the pretext of causing riots, even though they were not in the stone-throwing places, while the Hindus roamed freely and without being arrested.

The newspaper quoted Muhammad Taha as saying that it is easy for the police to detain Muslims as scapegoats to hide Hindu perpetrators.