A fact-finding committee formed by the NGO Janhastakshep has accused Hindutva groups such as the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of engineering the communal violence in Haryana’s Nuh district during a religious procession.
Six people were killed in the clashes on July 31.
“Even as Manipur continues to burn and witness mayhem, Mewat (where Nuh falls) has been set ablaze by the Hindutva hordes. When the rulers have no solution to people’s problems, keeping them mired in one crisis after another, each possibly bigger than the earlier one, is perhaps the only solution our rulers can think of, and this precisely is what the RSS-BJP attempted to do in Nuh-Mewat through their frontal organisations,” the committee said in its report.
“There is no mention whatsoever in the FIRs of violence, including use of firearms, unleashed from the side of those taking out the so-called ‘Dharmik Yatra’. The portends of this are clear, that in the FIRs only one side is the culprit while the side represented by Bajrang Dal and VHP rabble-rousers are the victims, all the videos showing the violence indulged in by the Hindutva goons notwithstanding. Such a framing of the events in the FIRs also means that there shall be arrest only of the Muslim youth, as has already started happening,” the report said.
It said a call had been given by the Bajrang Dal and the VHP for the procession to be taken out in Mewat on July 31. The yatra started from the Nalhar Shiv Mandir, located a little outside the town of Nuh on the Aravali’s foothills, and passed through the town covering a distance of about 40km.
The practice of taking out such a yatra started in 2021 and had led to communal tension last year, too, when a mazaar (shrine) situated near a temple had been damaged.
“Alongside the call for the yatra, a concerted effort was made to raise the communal temperature and provoke the local Muslims through social media posts. While challenging Muslims to stop, Monu Manesar, accused of murdering two Muslim men in February 2023, boasted that he shall be joining the yatra in person,” the report said.
Monu, an accused in the murder of two Muslims in Rajasthan in February, eventually claimed he did not take part in the yatra.
The NGO’s report highlighted that the government’s intelligence-gathering machinery and the civil society in Nuh had forewarned of trouble in the areas that the yatra participants were scheduled to walk through, but those warnings were ignored.
The report also said some Muslim youths got provoked and retaliatory videos were uploaded by them ahead of the procession.
The report cited a viral video on social media which is said to have been made during the riots and purports to show Dinesh Bharti of the Bharat Mata Vahini waving a machete to incite people. On July 31 before the yatra began, Surendra Kumar Jain, who claims to be the international joint general secretary of the VHP, delivered an inflammatory speech at the Nalhar temple, the report said.
The fact-finding team had journalists Saeed Naqvi and Astha Savyasachi, photojournalist Pradeep, Janahastakshep members Anil Dubey and Satish and convener Vikas Bajpai.
The report pointed out that the Mewat Vikas Sabha, a civil society organisation, had said that the yatra proposed by the Hindutva organisations was nothing but a “calculated move to stir communal violence in Muslim-majority Nuh”.
“The organisation alleged that the administration allowed the yatra to enter Mewat, and when the violence began, the administration simply collapsed, and the police disappeared.”
The report highlighted the unity that had emerged between Jats and Muslims as a bulwark against the communal designs of the Hindutva supporters. “The team found that Jats were aware that the procession was staged by the BJP for their political objectives. They also nurse a grouse against the BJP for its attitude towards the Jat agitation demanding reservations in jobs, and for calling Jats anti-national during the farmers’ movement,” the report said.
The fact-finding committee has demanded a free, fair and independent inquiry by a sitting judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court or the Supreme Court to reveal the conspiracy behind the violence and fix accountability.
“The chief protagonists of this violence — Bittu Bajrangi and Monu Manesar — be arrested immediately and booked under sections of the IPC befitting of the grievousness of their criminal actions,” the report said, adding those responsible for unleashing violence from either side should be identified and action taken against them in accordance with the provisions of the law.
“The obvious bias in the FIRs which holds only the Muslim community to be responsible for the violence in Nuh should be remedied immediately. The one-sided criminal action that has been initiated against the Muslims in Nuh by way of demolition of their homes should stop forthwith and the due legal process be followed in every case,” the report said.
Another report
Another NGO, the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), has in its fact-finding report titled “Exposing systematic violence and police complicity” underscored how the violence was premeditated and planned. It pointed to administrative negligence and the failure to take appropriate action despite being alerted about potential unrest, including provocative speeches and hate videos being circulated by Monu and Bittu.
The report also accused the police of complicity in the violence, saying several videos and eyewitness accounts suggested that law-enforcers had actively participated in vandalism, destruction and intimidation during the riots.
It alleged arbitrary and partisan police action against Muslims. The APCR report also spoke of post-violence oppression.
“The aftermath of the violence saw oppressive measures by law-enforcement agencies including demolishing properties belonging to Muslims under the pretext of lacking proper documentation. This added to the community’s sufferings and further deepened economic losses,” said the report.
