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Claims of women raped at Nuh: What police say, what organisers and temple mahant say, and what toilet cleaners of ISIS are aiming at

I, for one, will continue to believe Hindu victims and investigate despite the squawking of ISIS toilet cleaners and claims that the entire world is conspiring against innocent rioters. There is one conspiracy afoot here - to claim that Muslims are facing genocide in India while they stock stones and petrol bombs on their rooftops to attack Hindus and their religious processions at will.

Nupur J Sharma
Claims of women raped at Nuh: What the police say, what organisers say, what the Temple Mahant says and what toilet cleaners of ISIS are aiming at
Nuh violence
2013

On the 31st of July 2023, Islamists unleashed unbridled violence against Hindu devotees carrying out a Jalabhishek yatra organised by the VHP. So far, over 100 FIRs have been filed, 202 people have been arrested and the death count stands at 6. The Islamists, in a pre-planned attack, hurled stones at the devotees, fired shots, and burnt cars, creating hostage-like situations where several thousand devotees were trapped in a Temple, only to be rescued hours after the Islamists were raining down bullets on the temple and more.

Amidst the coverage of the brutality unleashed by Islamists and documenting the Hindu victims who witnessed the violence, 2 YouTube channels uploaded videos of a ground report. In those reports, it was claimed that in the surrounding hills of the Nalhar Temple, where at least 2000 devotees were stuck in a hostage like situation as Islamists rained bullets from the mountainous area, torn clothes of women had been found. There were also allegations by some locals that there are speculations that some women were dragged to the fields and raped by the Islamists and murdered.

Hours after this ground report was published, the ADGP of Haryana Police, Mamata Singh, refuted the claims made in the report summarily. She said that the claims were false and action would be taken against those who were making these claims.

According to the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Haryana Mamata Singh no such incident took place during the clashes as she herself was present there on the spot. 

“A narrative is going on social media since yesterday that the day the devotees were stuck at Nalhar Mandir, gruesome crimes like rape occurred with a few women devotees there during this. I would like to tell you that this is false, a complete rumour,” Mamata Singh told the reporters. 

She further said that strict action will be taken against such rumour-mongers. “I am saying this officially as I was present there during the entire incident. Nothing like that happened with any woman. We have already cleared that what actually happened there…Strict action will be taken against such rumour-mongers,” the ADGP said. She also said that as many as 216 people have been arrested in connection with the violence-related incidents in the state. 

After the Haryana police ADGP issued a clarification, several individuals who had shared the viral video deleted their tweets, while several still exist online. In fact, OpIndia had covered the story based on the YouTube channel ground report as well. The OpIndia Hindi report was temporarily unavailable because we were trying to dig for more information and update the report so our readers have adequate information. While I would come to that later, it becomes imperative to first examine the issue at hand.

Speaking to OpIndia, the Mahant of the Nalhar Temple refuted the claims that women had been raped during the violence as well. He said that such stories are being concocted because vested interests want to scare devotees away from coming the the Temple. Speaking to OpIndia, even VHP functionaries said that such reports were misplaced. We were told that women and children had mostly reached Nuh in the morning and had entered the Nalhar Temple for the Jalabhisehk. They were in the Temple while the Islamist onslaught started. While the Temple came under attack, the women and children only left the temple premises while they were being rescued by the police and therefore, he was positive that no incident of rape occurred with the women devotees. The VHP functionary did they say that it was entirely possible that during the violence, there may have been some women who were molested, however, he was confident that no incident of rape has occurred.

He believed that such stories were being floated to tarnish the image of VHP and Bajrang Dal as the organisation who defend Hindus on the streets, painting them as organisations that cannot even safeguard women travelling with them. He believed that by doing so, vested interests wanted to discourage women from participating in Hindu religious processions.

The Mahant of the temple also said that in the pandemonium, where they have been some cases of molestation of women by Islamists, women may have dropped their extra clothes, bags, personal items etc. This could have led to locals speculating about the incidents of rape and abduction.

I would, for what it is worth, trust these two sources – one is an eyewitness and the other, is a part of the organisation that organised the religious procession. It is in the light of this that OpIndia decided to update its report.

Assertions by Islamists of ‘paid actors’ posing to be witnesses and why I don’t trust that trope

When these ground reports started circulating and the version of the locals were being shared on social media, the usual suspects like AltNews’ Mohammad Zubair started demanding FIRs against those discussing the report.

Taking to Twitter, Mohammad Zubair wrote that he had spoken to ADGP Mamata Singh who ‘confirmed’ to him that no complaints of sexual assault had been received and therefore, these claims are fake. He then urged Nuh police to get in touch with the YouTube channels that had published this ground report and take appropriate action. He called these “unverified claims”.

“Hope @nuhpolice @police_haryana get’s in touch with these YouTube channels and the people they spoke to get more details as the people in the video claim that they were eye witness. If there in no truth to these claims, These YouTube channels and people spreading these propaganda should be book for running Anti Muslim propaganda”, he wrote.

Interestingly, he branded this ground report “anti-Muslim propaganda”.

Almost out of nowhere, Zubair, in the same thread, claimed that “most of these YouTube channels are known to use “paid actors for their propaganda”. Now, it is to be noted that he did not directly say that the witnesses in the video itself were paid actors because he had no proof for it. He also provided no evidence of which YouTube channels use such “paid actors”. He merely made an insinuation that those villagers in the video were paid actors.

Soon enough, the insinuation that “many channels” use “paid actors”, while slipping in the fact that “these channels” have “many videos of Mewat”, changed to a statement of fact, sans proof. In another tweet quoted his original thread, Mohammad Zubair asserted with confidence that those individuals who gave their testimony on camera were “paid actors”. The out-on-bail dog-whistler claimed that this ‘distressed him’.

It is important to understand here that there is absolutely no proof that these witnesses who spoke on camera were paid actors. If they were, the YouTube channel owners would end up spending precious years of their lives in jail, personally, however, I don’t believe they were paid actors. I believe these were common locals who were speculating about what the Islamists may have done in such a situation, given their history and how they conduct themselves when they unleash violence against Hindus historically.

Mewat is a Muslim majority area and the Islamisation of the region has been an open secret for several decades. Here are some of the cases from past years which gives one a peak into the extent of Islamisation and crimes committed against Hindus.

  • In 2017, Mewat Model School of Haryana came under the spotlight after allegations of forced conversions by the school surfaced. It was alleged that Hindu students were hustled into embracing Islam and offering namaz. Refusing to adopt Islam invited beatings from the teachers. After the matter came to light, the District Magistrate swung into action and suspended the teacher Moinuddin and warden Arif. One other teacher accused in the case was transferred. A victim student recounted how students were slapped in the hostel for holding up against accepting Islam.
  • In the year 2018, a 16-year-old girl committed suicide in Nuh area of Mewat region. Investigations then revealed that before this suicide, 8 boys abducted and raped her a few days ago. After committing such disgusting misdeeds, he left her outside his house in a blood-soaked condition. The investigation also revealed that the accused belonged to an influential family in the village. Those who started pressuring the victim’s family to withdraw the case as soon as the rape complaint was filed.
  • A year later, in 2018, there was a report of a deadly attack on a Dalit family from the village of Mohalka, Nagina block of Mewat. In the investigation of the matter, it was revealed that a man named Islam had been pressurising the family of Kishan living in the village to shun their religion and accept Islam. But when Kishan’s family resolutely denied converting, Islam, Taufiq, Mosim, Atru, and Asmeena attacked his family with batons and rods and humiliated them with casteist slurs.
  • A few years back, there was a case of forcible conversion, rape and abduction of a Dalit girl in Mewat. A woman named Farzana met the girl at the station after the Dalit girl left her house following a bitter quarrel with the family members. Farzana allegedly took the girl with her and gave her a new identity. The Dalit girl was purportedly fed beef and was forced to offer namaz. Farzana had later tried to sell the girl to a 70-year-old man named Islam for Rs 40,000. However, fortunately, the matter somehow reached the police and the victim was rescued. 
  • In another shocking incident from 2018, a minor girl was reported to have been raped in Haryana’s Mewat. According to media reports, the incident took place in Nuh’s Bhandka, in which the police arrested one Aslam for barging into the house of a 14-year-old girl and raping her. Aslam, along with two other men had entered the victim’s house and gang-raped her. The child’s father told that his daughter was sleeping in the home when Aslam and two other boys came and raped her. When the father of the girl came into the house, he saw Aslam raping her. Aslam was caught but the remaining two somehow escaped.
  • An issue of Love Jihad had come to the fore in 2019 when a girl was abducted by Muslim youths- Akil Khan and Rashid in the name of Jihad. The girl was reportedly hexed before being forcibly converted. The incident stirred a state-wide outrage and communal tensions in the region flared as protesters took to the streets and blocked the Gurugram Alwar National Highway for 11 hours.
  • In February 2020, a gang-rape incident with a married woman was reported in a village in Tawadu, Mewat. After the woman somehow broke out of her captivity, she accused five men of kidnapping and gang-raping her for months. The woman alleged that while she was held captive, she was administered with drugs by her captors and gang-raped. She also alleged that her kidnappers shot pornographic videos and threatened her of releasing them on the internet. 
  • Not just women and girls but even animals were not spared from the wrath of some warped individuals in Mewat. Some time ago a case of rape of a goat had surfaced. This horrific crime was carried out in the village of Marodha in Mewat on the land of Haryana. Following the investigation, one Jafar Khan and Sahukar Khan were arrested in the case while there were a total of 8 people who had allegedly raped the goat.

The local Hindus are those who have witnessed the atrocities against Hindus by the Muslims of Mewat – year after year. When mass violence like the recent Nuh violence breaks out and Hindus come under severe, fatal attack by a Muslim mob, is one to imagine that it would take paid actors to speculate the atrocities that Islamists are capable of inflicting against Hindu women? It is truly beyond the realm of one’s imagination that the local Hindus would truly and whole heartedly believe that their women were wronged? Do we believe, given the history of jihadi attacks, that they would maintain a ‘code of conduct’ where they would honour Hindu women and attack only the men?

I, for one, have no trepidation in believing that those men and women were local Hindus who feared that after murdering Hindu devotees, raining stones and bullets at them, lynching them, slitting their throats and holding women and children hostage in a Temple where they rained bullets, they would have also sexually assaulted the Hindu women.

In fact, let us not forget that a Hindu women who was stuck in the Temple when the Islamists were hammering the temple with bullets and stones categorically said that the women feared mass sexual assault by the Islamists.

“Hindu brothers were outside when shots were fired from the surrounding bushes. Power was turned out by the electrical department. They were waiting for the sun to set and for the night to fall in order to harass Hindu women sexually. Only we know how we preserved our honour. We have witnessed the deaths of our brethren. We know how our brothers were shot.” The woman broke down multiple times while recounting the horrors of the fateful occurrence.

She further continued, “We didn’t even have bandages to cover their wounds and hence, tied our stoles on them. Did we travel there to die? Can’t we offer darshan there? These people also take out their processions. Do any of us object to them? We lacked even access to water. We wet our throats with the water that was poured on the shivling.”

The woman devotee categorically said that the Islamists wanted to ensure that the women and children are held hostage in the temple overnight so they could sexually assault them, at least, that was her fear. Their strategy of trying to trap them overnight was also recounted by a male devotee who was in Nuh when the violence was unleashed. This was during an interview I had conducted personally.

I don’t blame the locals for speculating and truly believing that women were wronged because the Islamists are completely capable of raping women as they did to Hindus and Yazidis, and the ISIS toilet cleaners like Zubair are fully capable of whitewashing those monstrosities because that is what their job description is.

The ISIS toilet cleaners who are using this speculation by the locals to cry “fake news” are the same ones who are capable of calling every atrocity by the Islamists “fake news” because when Hindus talk about the onslaught they face on a regular basis, they believe it disturbs communal harmony – because talking about Islamist atrocities will tick off the Islamists yet again to unleash violence yet again and subjugate Hindus yet again. One has to remember that it was these ISIS toilet cleaners who de-platformed Yazidi women because their narrating their ordeal would bolster the mythical trope of Islamophobia. If the educated Yazidi women were de-platformed, one cannot fathom the raw deal the uneducated Hindu women of Nuh would get from them.

Before we proceed, though, I would like to explain my usage of the phrase “ISIS toilet cleaners”. ‘Toilet cleaners’ refers to those Indians who had fled to Iraq/Syria to join the Caliphate but were deemed worthy of only cleaning toilets by the Islamists. It also refers to their intellectual defenders in India, who would go to any extent to defend their violent tendencies and it certainly doesn’t stand for janitors and others, who make an honest living. It is essentially a way to talk about those who are the intellectual counterparts of elements like Areeb Majeed. Majeed was an Islamist arrested by NIA after he had fled India to join ISIS. Upon his arrest, he told the NIA that he had been tasked with cleaning toilets for ISIS. One would imagine that if a parallel was drawn, the intellectuals and media persons trying to shield Islamists are doing exactly the job that Majeed did – clean up the Islamist terrorists’ faeces.

So what was the purpose? Why did Islamists like Mohammad Zubair go hammer and tongs demanding FIRs and casting aspersions

On 31st July, unbridled violence was unleashed against Hindu devotees, participating in a Jalabhishek Shobha Yatra organised by VHP in Nuh of Mewat, Haryana. A Muslim mob went on a rampage pelting stones, shooting and murdering Hindu devotees in a pre-planned assault against Hindu devotees. An example of the brutality unleashed was what happened to Abhishek, a Hindu devotee who was first shot by the Muslim mob, then, his throat was slit open and as if that was not enough, the mob next crushed his head with a large stone. 

After the one-sided unbridled violence, the usual suspects – Islamists and Leftists – started their attempt to shield Islamists by first claiming that it was the Hindus who “provoked” violence and when that trope fell flat, claiming that it was the Hindus who initiated the violence. 

Their first assertion was that it was the “presence” of Monu Manesar in the Shobha Yatra that provoked violence. When it was proved that Monu Manesar was not present at the procession, they changed their tune to claim that it was a video released by Monu Manesar that provoked immediate violence. After that, when proof started emerging of the violence being a pre-planned campaign, the narrative shifted to claiming that it was the Hindus who initiated the violence and that no violence was perpetrated by the Muslim mob at all.

It was, again, Mohammad Zubair who was at the forefront of this. He shared a video of a man in a white shirt shooting towards the mountains from the inside of the temple, where over 2,000 Hindus were held hostage. Zubair used that video to claim that it was the Hindus who were shooting, not the Muslims, and therefore, it was the Hindus who started the violence. He even shared a tweet where it was claimed that unless there was a video of Muslims shooting at Hindus, it would not be considered true, all the while, ignoring the several videos that had emerged proving the Islamic barbarity against Hindus. The man shooting was a VHP leader and he confirmed that he was carrying a licensed weapon and was shooting in the air for the purpose of self-defence. This version was confirmed by ADGP Mamata Singh who spoke about how the Muslim mob was attacking the temple where Hindus were trapped. She was speaking from authority since she was inside the temple and had rescued the Hindus along with her team.

The recent onslaught by the Islamists and their Leftist ecosystem is only an extension of the campaign to blame Hindus for the violence unleashed against them by the Islamists. When Zubair claims authoritatively that the locals were paid actors, he does not need proof. He only needs a handful of faithful like Ravish Kumar to pick up that narrative and run with it so in the realm of the media, the narrative that it was the Hindus responsible for their own persecution is seeded further.

The purpose of going hammer and tongs, casting aspersions and calling the local testimonies “propaganda against Muslims” is not because the Islamists believe that the allegations of rape and molestation would hurt their piety. It is because if one claim is denied by the police, they can use that to make enough noise so people start doubting all the authentic information published about how the Muslim mob attacked Hindus in Nuh. Once that seed of doubt is planted, the people would be far more willing to accept that Muslims are innocent and only the victims of vicious propaganda. The truth be damned. Reality be damned. Victims, dead bodies and the lives ruined be damned.

The ultimate aim of ISIS toilet cleaners is simple – shield the Islamists, prove that it is the victims’ fault, prove that the Islamists are the real victims and that, any evidence of unbridled violence by the Muslim mob is a figment of the “right-wing” Hindu imagination.

So were women raped or molested during the Nuh violence?

The Mahant of the Temple who is an eyewitness of the onslaught and the VHP functionary have both, in essence, ruled out that women were raped and abducted. However, it is pertinent to note that even ADGP Mamata Singh said that they had received no complaints of rapes and molestation and therefore, the incidents had not happened.

Hypothetically, just because there are no complaints and FIRs, does not mean that the crime did not happen at all. I am, forever hopeful, that the police would investigate all angles despite the hollow shrieks of ISIS toilet cleaners since these are locals expressing their fears – fears that deserve to be looked into.

For most women, it is not easy to file complaints of rape and molestation. We live in a society where the stigma of molestation scars the victim far more than the perpetrator, especially when Islamist vultures are, forever ready, to whitewash claims based on the religion of the perpetrator. Let us assume a Hindu woman, trapped in the Islamist violence in Nuh, was grabbed, groped and pulled by Islamists indulging in violence. Does one believe that she would go file a complaint with the police or would she much rather forget the incident ever happened, be happy to be rescued and back home with her family safe? How many women actually complain to the police when they are molested – even the educated, empowered ones? Isn’t that what the MeToo movement was about – saying that a woman’s version of her dignity being attacked must be believed even years later because society must understand that the responsibility of her feeling confident enough to file a complaint is on them? Why then must the rules change for the poor, helpless women of Nuh?

It is rather sinister of the likes of Mohammad Zubair to discredit the legitimate fears of the locals and in order to do so, call them “paid actors”. Perhaps he views the world from his own lens, where a few lakhs a month are sufficient for him to paint targets on innocent Hindus’ backs, leading to even beheadings like that of Kanhaiya Lal. Maybe, he believes that for poor Hindu locals of Nuh, it is as easy as it is for him to compromise on their dignity and throw innocent women under the bus. It is sinister because his first instinct was to say women were not molested despite claims by locals and he did so not because he had proof, but because these were Hindu women potentially wronged by Muslim rioters – rioters who must be shielded.

I tweeted that I personally believe there is more than meets the eye in Nuh. I said so because I have seen patterns emerge every time Islamists subjugate Hindus. During the Bengal violence, there were many women who simply did not want their horrors told because they wanted to preserve the dignity they had left and not be victimised all over again by an apathetic system. During the Delhi anti-Hindu riots, there were locals from the Chand Bagh area who said that the rioters stripped their daughters and sent them back home naked. There were no complaints to this effect. Those women simply wanted to put their life back together and move on. They were scared that they would be victimised again, not only by an unsympathetic system but also by their Muslim neighbours who victimised them in the first place. The pattern is repeated, over and over again, and ISIS toilet cleaners have whitewashed these atrocities – over and over again.

I still believe there is more than meets the eye in Nuh, and I will do everything in my power to unearth what really happened on the 31st of July and the stories that Islamists want buried. The OpIndia Hindi report did not go temporarily missing because we are taking a step back from the reportage, but because the Hindi Editor was trying to get in touch with the YouTube channels that published the initial ground report, pending which, the article was made unavailable, only to be back again after we spoke to the Mahant and the VHP functionaries.

That I believe there is more than meets the eye will drive us to work harder, but does not impact how we treat facts that are recounted to us. Personally, I fully trust Islamists to indulge in unspeakable atrocities against Kafir, especially Kafir women. Liberals should truly be the last ones to lecture considering they peddle imaginary tales of Muslim victimhood almost on a regular basis. This is the big-brain victim story that Arfa Khanum Sherwani of TheWire is peddling now – hailed and believed by Islamists and Liberals alike.

Outlandish claims backed with zero evidence are what drive their ecosystem. This asininity will be believed just as mythical stories of Muslims being beaten up to chant Jai Shree Ram were believed. While most of those stories turned out to be patently fake, the ecosystem and their media partners refused to retract those stories or apologise – instead – they doubled down and dehumanised Hindus further.

I, for one, will continue to believe Hindu victims and investigate despite the squawking of ISIS toilet cleaners and claims that the entire world is conspiring against innocent rioters. There is one conspiracy afoot here – to claim that Muslims are facing genocide in India while they stock stones and petrol bombs on their rooftops to attack Hindus and their religious processions at will.

Ayodhra Ram Mandir special coverage by OpIndia

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Nupur J Sharma
Nupur J Sharma
Editor-in-Chief, OpIndia.

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