On Muharram this year, several incidents of mob violence and raising of slogans like ‘Sar tan se juda’ or ‘Hindustan mein rehna hai to Allah hu Akbar kehna hai” have been reported in various parts of India. However, there was no “idea of India khatre mein hai” or “lynchistan” type outrage on the ground or on social media. Why? Because the victims were Hindus and the perpetrators were Islamists. In Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district, an incident of mob lynching has been reported wherein a Hindu youth named Tejram was brutally lynched by a Muslim mob on 18^th July after Hindus objected to Muslims playing “dhol” outside a Hindu temple during a Muharram procession on 17^th July in Gausganj area.

An altercation ensued over Hindus stopping Muslims from playing Dhol [drums] in front of a Hindu temple on 17^th July during the Muharram procession. The accused Muslims then started attacking the Hindus and pelting stones at their houses and harassing the women. The ruckus had continued even after the arrival of the police. The Muslims later called more people from Rampur, CB Ganj, Mirganj, Devarniya and other neighbouring areas and attacked Hindu houses on the night of Friday with stones, sticks and other things.

Tejram was dragged out of his home to a mosque and mercilessly beaten, autopsy report reveals horrifying details

During the attack on Hindus by accused Muslims on the night of July 18th, Tejram sustained severe injuries on the head. An IndiaToday report said that some 80-100 persons arrived in the Gausganj neighbourhood and began pelting stones, breaking into houses, vandalising them, and beating up the residents. The villagers said that the Muslim attackers dragged Tejram from his house to the mosque and brutally thrashed the 26-year-old youth. Tejram’s family has said that he was attempting to defuse the matter. The Hindu youth was rushed to the hospital, however, Shahi Police Station in-charge Amit Kumar said that the victim succumbed to his injuries during treatment. Subsequently, the deceased victim’s body was sent for postmortem examination.

The postmortem report mentions the brutality inflicted by the attackers during the lynching of Tejram. The report said that the skull bones of victim Tejram were damaged during the mob lynching as a result of strikes from large stones and iron rods, and blood clots had developed in his brain. While Tejram was trying to escape, his both hands and shoulders bleeding.

Police books attackers, 35 arrested

After the mob violence, a case was then filed by the Hindu community against 50 identified individuals and 15 unidentified individuals. The Police eventually began an investigation into the case and arrested around 35 persons including Afsar Ali, Imran, Mukhtiar Ali, Abdul, Salam, and others. When police tried to arrest some accused, the accused had opened fire on police personnel too. The police had to open retaliatory fire. This resulted in injury to one of the accused identified as Alamgir. After this incident, one Najakat Ali was also arrested by the police. A constable was injured by shrapnel in the firing.

Yogi government takes bulldozer action

On Tuesday (23rd July), the district administration of Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly razed over nine houses belonging to the Muslim accused in the case. Before this, the administration demolished 11 buildings belonging to the accused persons after finding that they constructed houses on Gram Samaj’s government land.

During the demolition drive, the house of the main accused Bakhtawar was also razed to the ground. In addition, the illegal houses of accused Babu, Hasan Ali, Kader Ali, Hanif, Haseen, and Riyasat have also been marked for demolition.

थाना शाही क्षेत्रान्तर्गत ग्राम गौसगंज में दिनांक 19.07.2024 को घटित घटना के सम्बन्ध में पंजीकृत अभियोगो में 35 अभियुक्तों की गिरफ्तार आदि की कार्यवाही होने के सम्बन्ध में पुलिस अधीक्षक दक्षिणी बरेली की बाइट।#UPPolice pic.twitter.com/BeJjVLJAvg

— Bareilly Police (@bareillypolice) July 24, 2024

No outrage on Tejram’s lynching by a Muslim mob and the silence of the media

Do you remember Akhlaq? Do you remember Pehlu Khan? Yes, you do! These names have been etched in your memory since the entire media, left-liberal ecosystem and political vultures made sure you do, and feel “ashamed as a Hindu” and guilty. A mere mention of these two names refreshes one’s memory of how the anti-Hindu cabal and placard gang berated Hindustan as “lynchistan” to assert that somehow the Muslim ‘minority’ is no longer safe under the Modi-led ‘Hindutva’ government.

When incidences like the alleged lynching of Akhlaq in 2015 and cow smuggler Pehlu Khan occurred in 2017, there was massive criticism, media coverage, and outrage from a variety of sources, including liberals and self-proclaimed ‘human rights’ activists. Akhlaq’s lynching, in which he was suspected of storing beef, became a national issue, sparking debates about intolerance and mob violence in India against ‘minorities’ even as it turned out that while Akhlaq’s family had claimed the meat in question was mutton, the final report on the same confirmed it was from a cow. However, similar outrage and attention appear to be non-existent in the case of the lynching of Tejaram since he was a Hindu lynched by those belonging to an ‘oppressed’ minority. A man named Tabrez beaten to death in Jharkhand in 2019 over allegations of theft sparked more outrage than over a Hindu youth who spoke for his community being lynched by Muslims.

While news anchors conducted primetime debates to peddle the ‘darr ka mahaul’ narrative, long op-eds were written by anti-Hindu pens for hire in Indian and Western media passing off incidents of violence over cattle smuggling allegations as the lynching of Muslims by ‘Hindutva’ mobs, there is deafening ‘secular’ silence over the horrific lynching of Tejaram in Bareilly. Except for a few journalists, the mainstream media which takes delight in preaching to Hindus how they are becoming ‘intolerant’, is absolutely mum over a Hindu man’s lynching by Muslims, and incidents involving the raising of murderous ‘Sar tan se juda’ slogans during Muharram processions. You will not see primetime debates with ‘experts’ discussing where the country is heading.

If you have not heard about Teja Ram’s brutal lynching by Islamists on Moharram, I don’t blame you. “Secular silence”, as @AmanChopra_ puts it, is very real. Have a look at how the news is blacked out totally even by Google. pic.twitter.com/Zu7383W13o

— Amit Thadhani (@amitsurg) July 25, 2024

While Hindus have the least expectations from biased media publications, their silence on incidents of religiously motivated violence against Hindus is dangerous. Their silence contributes to the normalisation of anti-Hindu violence. If narrative building is an art, Islamists and their media allies are its Picasso. On the one hand, Islamists and Muslim ‘journalists’ stir outrage even by peddling fake ‘mob lynching by Hindus’ narrative over incidents wherein the deceased happens to be a Muslim with no communal angle whatsoever, on the other, incidents of violence against Hindus do not get enough attention forget outrage and even the media forgets such incidents after one or two short articles or mentioning them in ‘100 fatafat’ news on television.

The media bias contributes to the perpetuation of a narrative wherein Muslims are permanent victims while Hindus are disregarded. Furthermore, it denies victims equal respect and justice because their cases do not receive the attention and advocacy that would help in getting justice for Hindu victims.

Apparently, the biased media and Hindu-hating political parties have successfully established the narrative that there are two types of mob lynching: one is “communal lynching” wherein the victim happens to be a Muslim regardless of the existence of any communal angle or not, and the other is “secular lynching” wherein Hindus are the victims of mob violence by Muslims. They have managed to convince the public that somehow only alleged ‘communal lynching’ is worth street protests, candle marches, social media outrage, primetime debates, celebrities crying ‘Not my India’ etc. It seems that the incidents of anti-Hindu violence are being deliberately downplayed to convince the Hindus that only the Muslim ‘minority’ can be victims and since Hindus are the majority community they are by default the oppressors.

Just imagine the outrage had Tejram’s name been Tabarez and it was the occasion of Ram Navami or Hanuman Jayanti instead of Muharram. Notably, in what seems like a deliberate cover-up, most mainstream media reports did not even mention that Tejaram was lynched allegedly inside a mosque. No wonder, the killers of Kamlesh Tiwari get bail while the deceased Hindu is forgotten while death anniversaries of cow smugglers and cow meat hoarders are observed by Islamists every year. The short-term memory of Hindus further helps them in downplaying anti-Hindu violence and whitewashing the crimes of Islamists as well as using the desperation of Hindus to hold moral high ground to guilt trip them over incidents wherein the deceased happens to be Muslim. Hindus are definitely losing the narrative battle despite being persecuted while Islamists, with the help of their media allies and politicians continue to control the narrative and even influence elections by playing perpetual victimhood. So far, the cases of grooming jihad [also called love jihad] are dismissed as ‘fiction’, ‘hoax’ and ‘conspiracy theory’, soon the cases of anti-Hindu violence will also be given similar tags.