BBC HindiThe area in Uttar Pradesh, India’s northern state, is still rife with anxiety two days after deadly assault in Sambhal left four people dead and many others injured.
The violence broke out on Sunday during a court-ordered inspection of the 2,000-year-old Shahi Jama Masjid ( mosque ), which some Hindu organizations claim was constructed on the site of a temple that had been destroyed.
Police said the protesters, most of them Muslims, pelted them with stones and that they fired teargas shells and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds. They said 20 policemen were injured.
Four Muslim gentlemen who were killed on Sunday were shot dead by police, a demand that the authorities have refuted, but their families have since made that claim.
Although a large number of officers and separatists are stationed around the dome and the rest of the town, according to officials, the situation is now under control.
The roads are oddly silent, dotted with stones, and dotted with ashes marks from where cars were set on fire.
Up until December 1st, local officials have made it illegal for newcomers, cultural activists, and politicians to enter the city. Colleges have been closed, and internet access has been halted.
At least 25 individuals have been detained in connection with the crime, according to police, who have identified seven cases.
On Monday, BBC Hindi met the grief-stricken families of the men killed during the violence.
Getty ImagesIn the Tabela Kot place, Idro Ghazi continues to mourn piteously. Her 34-year-old brother, Naeem Ghazi, was among the deceased.
She claimed that her brother, who had gone to the market to buy oil, was certainly a part of the opposition. He was surrounded and shot near the dome, she alleged.
The depressed family has chosen not to file a policeman complaint despite her pain.
” We do not have the courage to fight the police and the government”, she said, her voice big with pain.
About two miles away, in the Baghicha Sarayatrin town, a motionless crowd had gathered outside a dome. Nafees, who lost his 22-year-old child Bilal in the murder, sat on the actions with his head bowed.
His brother, he said, had gone to get clothing when he was killed. ” The policeman shot him in the chest”, he alleged.
The authorities have denied these complaints. Muniraj G, a senior police officer, claimed that during the altercation, the officers did not fire on the crowd.
More than 2,700 people have been charged by the Sambhal authorities, including the Samajwadi Party-affiliated nearby member of parliament Zia-ur-Rehman Barq. They accuse him of provoking the demonstrators.
Barq asserted that he was present at a conference in Bengaluru at the time of the murder and that he had no intention of engaging in it. As proof, he showed the BBC Hindi staff his flight reservations.
Getty ImagesThe state’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) government has been criticized by opposition parties for trying to polarize people according to their religions.
Citizens were so frightened that they were afraid to even discuss the deaths of the four men, according to a legislator from India’s main opposition party, Tauqeer Ahmed.
Akhilesh Yadav, past Uttar Pradesh deputy minister and head of Barq’s group, accused the state officials of “orchestrating the riot”- a charge they deny.
Yadav even questioned the necessity of conducting the review at the mosque in a press conference on Monday.
The Shahi Jama Masjid discussion is the most recent in a line of problems involving mosque in India, where Hindu organizations claim Muslim leaders destroyed temples to erect over them.
After a complaint claimed that the shrine had been constructed on the site of a Hindu temple, a local court ordered a review of the mosque’s page on November 19th. Officials in Uttar Pradesh began the study after the court’s approval.
Five times after the first study, a huge crowd of protesters gathered near the mosque and began yelling slogans at the study team. The review turned violent.
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