Mayhem
In Mangalore
By Yoginder Sikand
25 October, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Early
this month, a series of violent incidents rocked Mangalore and several
nearby towns and villages in coastal Karnataka. Two people were killed,
dozens injured and property worth several lakhs was destroyed. Although
a semblance of peace has now been restored, tension remains, as I discovered
after a recent trip to the area along with some social activists from
Bangalore.
For some years now, Hindutva
forces have been very active in the Dakshina Kannada district, where
Mangalore is located. The MP from the area and most of the local MLAs
are from the BJP. The road leading to Mangalore is strewn with saffron
banners and flags, indicating the presence of numerous Hindutva outfits.
Economic factors, such as competition between Muslim and Hindu traders
and contradictions between some sections of the fishermen community
and Muslim traders have been used by Hindutva forces to whip up anti-Muslim
sentiments and consolidate their presence. Consequently, relations between
Hindus and Muslims have been badly affected, an outcome of which were
what many locals believe were the pre-planned riots of early October,
in which BJP and Bajrang Dal leaders, including some occupying top positions
in the present Karnataka government, are said to have played a leading
role.
Madrasat ul-Badariya is a
small mosque-cum-madrasa recently constructed in Bejai, a locality in
Mangalore. There are around a dozen Muslim houses in this largely Christian
and Hindu area. On the evening of the 6th of October, some young men
entered the area in a car, scaled the wall of the Christian locality
and barged into the madrasa. The only person inside the madrasa was
Abdul Ghafur, the imam. They are said to have pelted the imam with stones,
plunged swords into his body while raising slogans hailing the Bajrang
Dal and then fled from the scene. The muezzin, who was in the adjacent
bathroom while this was happening, fled to a nearby house to inform
people of the attack. The imam was rushed to the hospital, where he
died.
Says Noor (name changed),
a local youth, 'There has never been any communal tension in this area.
Even in the 1992 and 1998 violence our locality remained tension-free.
This incident was clearly motivated to terrorise us. But what can we
do? We have to live and die here'. The imam was just 23 years-old an
from a very poor family, he tells me. He is survived by his aged father,
who is almost blind, his mother and three sisters of marriageable age.
He was the sole breadwinner of his family.
In Unity Hospital, Mangalore,
a young Muslim man writhes in pain on his hospital bed as he tells us
about how his cousin Ibrahim, who, while travelling in an ambulance
to the airport, was laid upon by a Hindu mob, and was killed. The young
man and six others were also in the vehicle and, they, too, were attacked
with lethal weapons but escaped. The mob pelted his genitals with large
stones, and he does not know if he can ever fully recover. He is a daily-wage
earner and does not know how or when he can go back to work.
It is clear that the police,
too, actively engaged in this campaign of terror directed against the
Muslims. In several Muslim localities in Mangalore and in nearby BC
Road and Ullal that we visited, evidence of police brutality was amply
evident. Rows upon rows of houses were set upon by the police in the
dark of night. They barged into several dozen houses, breaking down
doors and shattering windowpanes. Inside, they went on a rampage on
the pretext of searching for miscreants, smashing television sets, wrenching
open almirahs and abusing and physically manhandling womenfolk. Scores
of Muslim men, most of them said to be innocent, were arrested and,
it is alleged, false cases slapped on them. Many of them have been sent
to jails in far-off places, some as distant as Bellary, over 400 kilometres
from Mangalore. Their children and womenfolk have had no news of them.
We met numerous Muslims who said they sought to file cases but the police
refused to register them.
Says Fatima (name changed),
whose husband and son have been in jail for the last fifteen days, 'My
husband was a poor daily wage earner. He had nothing to do with the
violence. The police forced themselves into our house, stole my jewellery
and took my husband away. For fifteen days we have had no source of
income. We are surviving thanks to the help of our neighbours'.
Uncontrollably sobbing, Najma
(name changed), another Muslim housewife, says, 'My husband is a heart
patient. He is on medication. He was at home when this happened. The
police broke down our door and grabbed him and dragged him off with
them. He is perfectly innocent. I have no idea when he will come back'.
Looting and destruction of
Muslim shops, in many cases said to have been abetted by the police,
has resulted in loss of property running into several lakhs. In Ullal,
some Hindu shops, too, were attacked, following a rumour, proved later
to have been false, that the police had fired on Muslims in the vicinity
of the famous dargah located in the town.
A rumour of the imminent
slaughter of cows by a Muslim butcher is said to have sparked off the
recent violence in Mangalore. Apparently, over the past four years there
have been several incidents of Bajrang Dal activists manhandling Muslim
butchers. Last year the Bajrang Dal even
took over the slaughterhouse in an auction in a bid to keep the Muslims
out. However, they could not run the slaughterhouse for long and so
it was once again taken over by a group of Muslims. Yet, they managed
to get it closed down for several days on the grounds of lack of hygiene.
This time Bajrang Dal leaders decided to use the issue of animal slaughter
to engineer anti-Muslim violence in the town. According to some reports,
this was pre-planned. An so when a Muslim butcher, was transporting
what some say were buffaloes (and not cows) that he had bought for slaughter
from a Hindu, Bajrang Dal activists pounced on the opportunity to set
off a wave of attacks on Muslims in Mangalore. Some local Kannada newspapers,
whose Hindutva connections are well-known, played a major role in further
instigating the violence by publishing false reports of Muslim attacks
on Hindus.
As of now, a semblance of
peace prevails, but for the families of the scores of people killed
or injured in the violence, whose houses and properties were attacked
by mobs and the police and whose menfolk languish in jail, many on trumped
up charges—mostly Muslims—things can never be the same again.
Says Mohammad, a Muslim youth from Mangalore, 'Hindutva leaders and
some newspapers have made the ridiculous claim of SIMI or the Laskhar
-i Tayyeba being behind the violence. Not even an idiot will believe
this. The Hindu fascist forces started the violence, and those responsible
for it still remain largely scot-free, while scores of innocent Muslims
have been arrested and terrorised. What sort of democracy and justice
is this?'.
'Hindutva forces want to
plunge India into the throes of civil war', says Mohammad's friend Hussain.
'Inter-communal relations have largely been good here', he adds, 'but
the Hindutva fascists want to destroy that, and are trying to do that
all over Karnataka, now that they are in a coalition government in the
state. Only Allah knows what the future holds for us'.
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