Protests were held in cities across India yesterday against a wave of attacks on Muslims by mobs that accuse them of killing cows or eating beef.
The protests follow the stabbing to death last week of a 16-year-old boy accused of possessing beef on a train.
Several people have been arrested.
On Tuesday, a man was beaten and his house set on fire by a mob that accused him of slaughtering a cow in eastern Jharkhand state.
Waving “Not in My Name” banners and “Stop Cow Terrorism” placards, actors, writers and young mothers cradling babies braved monsoon rains in Mumbai, Kolkata and other cities, while in Delhi a cast of intellectuals and activists were joined by relatives of recent lynching victims.
“I feel afraid. I don’t even know if I will be able to reach home safely,” Bashruddin Khandawali, a 24-year-old cousin of Junaid Khan, who was killed last week on the train, said next to a huge “Lynch Map of India” banner.
On Jantar Mantar road of New Delhi, protesters carried posters that said “Shed hate not blood,” “Muslims Lives Matter,” and “Not in my Name.”
College students, schoolchildren, their parents, teachers and activists were part of the 2,000-strong crowd that stood listening to songs and hymns.
Among them were Shabana Azmi, Medha Patkar, Aam Aadmi Party leaders and citizens who said communal division of the country and lynchings should stop.
“Fundamentalists are dividing people. We need to have events like these that create pressure against this trend,” Patkar said.
Saba Dewan, who started the campaign on Facebook, said: “This is against the systematic violence taking place against Dalit Muslims. The state has done nothing and there is a deafening silence.”
Similar protests, with lesser numbers, were reported from several cities including Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram.
Events were also planned in London and Boston.
Critics accuse right-wing Hindu groups, some linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, of fomenting or not doing enough to stop violence against Muslims and lower-caste Hindus who eat beef or work in the meat and leather industries.
Modi denies the accusation and has publicly criticised so-called cow vigilantes.
Almost all of the 63 attacks since 2010 involving cow-related violence were recorded after Modi and his government came to power in 2014, IndiaSpend, a data journalism website, said in a report.
Twenty-eight people – 24 of them Muslims – have been killed and 124 injured since 2010 in cow-related violence, IndiaSpend said.
Federal Minister of Information and Broadcasting Venkaiah Naidu called the killing of Khan “atrocious” and said local authorities must take action.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a leading commentator, this week described the lynchings as “a protracted riot in slow motion”.
“What makes this violence chilling is that it is acquiring an atmosphere of a religious communion about it,” he wrote in the Indian Express.
Anjali Arondekar, a professor visiting from California, said she had attended the Mumbai protest because “nobody seems to care any more that a young Muslim man is being killed.”
India’s history is pockmarked by Hindu-Muslim communal clashes, although the vast majority of people live peacefully together.
Community leaders called on Modi to do more to protect the 14% of India’s 1.3bn people who are Muslim.
“I fear that if this goes on, there will be a counter-reaction that would be dangerous for peace and tranquillity,” said Navaid Hamid, president of the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat.
Protesters hold placards as they gather for a ‘Not in my name’ silent protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi yesterday.
