“Hindus have changed”: Sleeping Indian state becomes anti-Muslim powder keg | Policy

Kadamtala (Tripura), India – The last thing Shahin Ahmed, 38, remembers of his brother, Alfeshani Ahmed, is a frantic call with him amid gunshots and screams.

On October 6 around 9 p.m., Alfeshani, 36, owner of a smartphone and electronic accessories store, had just hurriedly closed his store in Kadamtala market to return home to Jher Jheri, a predominantly Muslim village located on three kilometers. (about 3 km) in northern Tripura, a district in northeastern India.

A crowd was going wild in the market and Ahmed knew his store would not be spared. “So he left the store, taking only his store’s ledger containing all his financial transactions and records,” Ahmed said.

Tension had already flared in the early hours of the day between local Hindus and Muslims in the area after a Muslim driver of a car refused to pay for a membership at a local Hindu club for Durga Puja, a major Hindu festival. . The driver and a passenger, both Muslims, were also allegedly attacked by members of the club.

The Kadamtala subdivision, which also includes the market, has a mixed population of Hindus and Muslims, with Hindus making up over 64 percent of the population and Muslims nearly 35 percent. Muslims, the state's largest minority group, also make up about 9 percent of Tripura's population of 3.6 million.

Muslims in Kadamtala and neighboring areas of predominantly Hindu northern Tripura traditionally pay subscriptions to Durga Puja celebrations as a sign of harmony between Hindus and Muslims. Manik Saha, the state's chief minister, had earlier warned groups against trying to pay for subscriptions for Durga Puja.

However, on October 6, the situation took a turn for the worse in the evening, when Hindu and Muslim groups clashed, leading to the massive deployment of security personnel. Police charged the crowd with batons and opened fire, according to reports.

Seventeen people, mostly police officers, were injured during the communal clashes and one person died.

It was Alfeshani. “He was on the phone with me when a bullet hit him in the head,” Shahin Ahmed, Alfeshani’s brother, told Al Jazeera.

Bhanupada Chakraborty, who was the North Tripura district police commissioner at the time, however, said the police had not targeted anyone in particular and that the cause of Alfeshani's death was “under investigation.” .

His family, however, disputes the police version. “The police shot him in the head,” said Alifjaan Begum, Alfeshani’s mother, gushing. “The fire in my heart will never go out. It was murder.

The trigger

Earlier in the day, a delegation of Muslims called on local police to arrest those responsible for the alleged attack on the Muslim driver and passenger. In response, Kadamtala police also arrested two people in connection with the alleged attack on the Muslim driver and the female passenger. Their detention took place after a protest by local Muslims.

But tensions further escalated after another member of the Durga Puja organizing club made an “inflammatory comment” about the Prophet Muhammad on Facebook, said a person from the Muslim delegation, speaking on condition of anonymity. . Al Jazeera can independently verify this comment.

An angry Muslim group went looking for the young man in a predominantly Hindu neighborhood. “They pelted stones and broke doors and windows, creating a scene of panic among the Hindus, and asked them to hand over the Hindu boy to them,” said Bibhu Debnath, secretary of the Kadamtala Market Association, at Al Jazeera.

This infuriated the Hindus. Groups affiliated with the Hindu-majority Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) party – the ideological source of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also rules in Tripura – vandalized a few Muslim shops in the Kadamtala market.

As the riots between the two groups intensified, Alfeshani attempted to escape.

He couldn't.

“Selectively burned”

On the morning of October 8, Suhail Ahmed Khan, 40, finally arrived at his shop in Kadamtala market. It was a five-minute drive from his home, but it took two days before he could get there safely because of the violence.

The day before, on October 7, local Hindus and a crowd from outside Kadamtala allegedly belonging to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal – groups affiliated with the RSS – had gathered near the market. They then headed towards the market, “burning and looting houses”, said a local political leader, Heera Lal Nath of the opposition Congress party. Tapas Roy, RSS publicity manager in Tripura, denied the allegations.

Khan's shop was burned to the ground. The store, which sold smartphones and other electronic gadgets in Kadamtala market, was also looted.

It was a store in which Khan had invested all his savings. “More than 57 lakh rupees [$67,550] had caught fire,” Khan said, struggling to speak. “With such loss, my life has become death. »

“It was collective punishment,” Khan said, struggling to speak. “They ruined us mentally and economically. »

Right in the center of Kadamtala market, the Kadamtala Jama mosque was also set on fire by a mob on the same day, October 7. “They burned all the religious books,” Abdul Motin, advisor to the Kadamtala Jama mosque committee, told Al Jazeera. .

Near the market, in the Saraspur district, Islam Uddin, 40, is rebuilding his burnt house. His house was among 10 Muslim-owned homes in a neighborhood with a large Hindu population that were burned down by a mob on the same day, October 7.

“My family and I had to flee for our lives,” he said.

His neighbor, Atarun Nessa, whose house was burned down, is now surviving thanks to the charitable work of local NGOs. Her family's only source of income – an electric rickshaw that her husband, Siraj Uddin, used – was charred by the Hindu mob.

“It was the only way we could manage a piece,” Nessa, 47, told Al Jazeera, devastated. “What life are we living now? »

Several witnesses, who requested anonymity, said the police remained “spectators” when the angry Hindu crowd went on the rampage on October 7.

Local lawmaker Islam Uddin of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said police authorized the arson. “If [police] wanted, they could have stopped the Hindu mob,” he said, adding that “it was like they were choosing a side.”

Sudip Roy Barman, a lawmaker from the opposition Congress party, said the violence in Kadamtala was “state-sponsored” by the BJP. “The BJP wanted to incite Muslims. »

When contacted for comment, Chakraborty, then superintendent of police in North Tripura, told Al Jazeera: “I am not the right person to speak with the press. »

Al Jazeera's calls to Tripura police chief Amitabh Ranjan went unanswered. Al Jazeera also sent his office a detailed questionnaire but has not yet received a response. However, he has previously rejected allegations that police failed to respond during the violence.

“Muslims live in fear”

The clashes in Kadamtala are just the latest examples of inter-religious violence in Tripura in recent months, after tensions erupted several times in August and October over allegations that Muslims had defaced Hindu deities. In retaliation, mosques were attacked and, in some cases, Muslim homes were burned.

For Sultan Ahmed, a Tripura-based activist and national secretary of the Islamic Students' Organization of India, a Muslim student body, these latest attacks are reminiscent of the devastating riots that ravaged much of the state in 2021.

“Muslims in Tripura still live in fear of what happened then,” Ahmed said.

Large Hindu crowds, affiliated with far-right groups, attacked Muslim homes and mosques in many districts of the stateespecially in North Tripura, which shares a 96 km-long border with Bangladesh.

The attacks were a response to Muslim mobs in Bangladesh who attacked the Hindu minority after a Quran was found on the knee of a Hindu deity during Durga Puja celebrations.

“Since then, any attack on Hindus in Bangladesh has put Muslims living in North Tripura under tension,” Ahmed added.

“The Hindus have changed”

Tripura has long witnessed ethnic violence between the state's tribal communities and Bengalis. The sleepy mountain state, however, has no history of religious clashes between Hindus and Muslims.

Until Modi's BJP came to power in 2018.

While India's Home Ministry has stopped publishing statistics on interfaith violence, data available from the National Crime Record Bureau on statewide riots from 2016 to 2020 shows that Tripura has not reported only two cases of communal violence, and these too were from 2019.

However, that number has risen sharply since then, with Hindu groups attempting to “foment communal sentiments” in around a dozen cases since 2018, said Uddin, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) lawmaker.

These incidents include right-wing groups attacking Muslim-owned rubber plantations in the state and claiming that an ancient mosque is a temple.

Cases of lynching of Muslim men by Hindu mobs have also increased.

BJP spokesperson in Tripura, Subrata Chakraborty, told Al Jazeera that “no [group] obtains privileges under the current government.

“This government is a proactive and pro-development government,” Chakraborty said.

Meanwhile, Kadamtala remains tensed. “Muslims, who make up 70 percent of the market's customers, no longer want to buy anything from a Hindu store,” said Khan, whose store was set on fire by a Hindu mob. “The harmony that existed before will take years to return, or perhaps never. »

For Abdul Haque, a former member of the BJP's minority wing in Kadamtala, the recent violence is emblematic of a broader change.

“Earlier, during Hindu festivals, they would fix the loudspeaker so that it would not disturb Muslims, but now they turn up the loudspeakers and play provocative songs,” he said.

“Hindus have changed here. »