On Monday (October 3) night, a menacing mob of 150 Islamists laid siege on a Navratri Garba event in Undhela village in the Kheda district of Gujarat.
As per reports, they pelted stones at a Hindu temple, which hosted the event on its premises. Islamists had earlier objected to the conduct of the Hindu religious event by the village sarpanch (Head) under the pretext that a mosque was in the vicinity of the temple.
When the Hindu devotees refused to give in to their demands and went ahead with the Navratri Garba programme, the mob of Islamists came to disrupt the event.
While a total of 43 people were named in the case, only about 13 people could be detained by the police. They were brought back to the village on Tuesday (October 4) and allegedly caned by police personnel for pelting stones at the temple. The accused were also asked to apologise to the public.
Deputy Superintendent of Police VR Bajpai informed, “Police detained 13 persons after the FIR was registered at Matar police station. The village sarpanch (head) had organised Garba at a temple. A mob from the Muslim community tried to stop it from taking place.”
A video of the incident has now gone viral on social media. Islamists and their sympathisers quickly hopped on the opportunity to cast aspersions on law enforcement authorities.
Congress leader, Karti P Chidambaram, tweeted, “The BJP is making India into a Hindutva Iran. Public flogging like the fundamentalist Islamiuc nations, makes India no different from them. What next public beheadings? And the chants?”
The incident was further amplified by the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), which shrewdly omitted the mention of stone pelting by the Islamists.
It claimed, “Police in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party ruled Gujarat state publicly flogged 9 Muslim men in front of a cheering crowd chanting “Hail Mother India” slogans. This is cruel, inhuman & prohibited under the international human rights Law.”
The IAMC is a Jamat-e-Islami-backed lobbyist organisation claiming to be a rights advocacy group. In the past, it had reportedly collaborated with and had even paid money to various groups in the USA to get India blacklisted by the USCIRF (United States Commission on International Religious Freedom).
Majid Freeman, who peddled fake stories to rationalise violence by Islamists in Leicester, also claimed, “Muslims flogged publicly in Kheda, India. In BJP ruled Gujarat, 9 Muslim men who were allegedly arrested for throwing stones at a Garba event were tied to a pole & publicly flogged with a cane by the Police while the crowd chanted ‘Hail Mother India’ slogans.”
‘Journalist’ Saba Naqvi claimed that the image of stone pelters, allegedly thrashed by police personnel, will remain forever etched in public memory.
“So the next time you read of mass floggings in theocratic states don’t feel superior and say we have the rule of law in Democratic India. This image should stay with us,” she wrote.
One may recall how Islamists were rallying to censor the viral video of Kanhaiya Lal’s beheading under the pretext that it would incite a chain of violent events. The same coterie is now reposting the video of alleged police personnel thrashing stone pelters in full public glare.
Islamists have yet again pulled out the same tricks from the playbook they have mastered for years. By accusing police of high-handedness, they implicitly exonerated the stone-pelters who attacked Hindus and instead passed the buck on conscientious law enforcement officials who created an example out of the rioters by public dispensation of justice.
Hindus in India are caught in a state of dilemma. They can neither demand protection from the State as they happen to be the ‘non-violent majority’ nor can they defend themselves out of the fear of being called brute majoritarians, oblivious to minority rights.
Before attacking law enforcement officials for teaching Islamists a lesson about their lives, it serves well to remember that if the rioters are allowed to have their way, they won’t flinch from pulling off another Kishan Bharwad, Kanhaiya Lal, or Kamlesh Tiwari.