India a dangerous, violent place for Muslims under Modi government, says minorities report
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India has become a “dangerous and violent space for Muslim minorities” ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government introduced amendments to the Citizenship Act last year, said the South Asia State of Minorities Report 2020.
The annual report looks at the status of civic space and personal liberties accessible to citizens, especially minorities, living in South Asian countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
It said that while civic space is under threat the world over, India’s case was unique in terms of the “alarming setbacks” that have “taken place at an extraordinary pace, over the span of a few years”.
“India has become a dangerous and violent space for Muslim minorities,” the report said. “In December 2019, an amendment in the Citizenship Act was passed which opened a pathway for a category of illegal immigrants, specifically leaving out Muslims. In the run-up to the legislation, the government also declared its intentions to create a National Register of Indian Citizens, which would have the potential to render many Muslims stateless.”
The report said that the BJP assuming power nationally in 2014 “unveiled a new and now frontal attack on religious minorities and other vulnerable groups. This has had a chilling effect on civic space for Muslims and Muslim-community-based organisations and activists specifically, it added.
“Hate crimes against minorities have seen a spike – taking the form of mob lynching and vigilante violence against Muslims, Christians, and Dalits. BJP also strengthened and expanded a series of discriminatory laws and measures that target religious minorities. These include anti-conversion laws, blamed by human rights groups for empowering Hindutva groups to ‘conduct campaigns of harassment, social exclusion and violence against Christians, Muslims, and other religious minorities across the country’.60 Laws ostensibly meant for the protection of cows continue to provide institutional backing for similar campaigns against Muslims and Dalits.”
— South Asia State of Minorities Report 2020
However, the situation has “exacerbated significantly” since BJP returned to power with a “brute majority” in May 2019, the report said. In quick succession, it enacted a slew of measures aimed at signalling to Muslims “particularly its will to brutally subjugate”, it added.
Alongside, the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, which regulates foreign donations to entities in India, has been “further weaponised against progressive and minority NGOs”, it noted.
The report also found that India’s civil society actors, which include human rights lawyers, activists, protestors, academics, journalists, liberal intelligentsia, have “increasingly been under attack” for speaking out against “government excesses and majoritarianism”.
Besides, human rights defenders have increasingly come under attack for “protesting discriminatory laws and practices have faced restrictions, violence, criminal defamation, detention and harassment”, the report said.
It further highlighted the alleged human rights violation in Jammu and Kashmir since last year when the Centre abrogated the erstwhile state’s special status under Article 370 of the Constitution.
“The case of Muslim-majority Kashmir – where regressive constitutional changes in August 2019 were accompanied by a communication blackout, mass detentions, and a movement lockdown –demonstrates how civic space can be sought to be completely erased, within a formal democratic framework,” it said.
It said that while civic space in conflict-affected Kashmir has always been restricted, the “most recent round of attacks on ‘basic freedoms’ were, however, quite unlike anything before in their being all-encompassing and systematic”.
Courtesy: scroll.in
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Two held for 'firing' at BJP leader's house in Bengal
Kolkata (PTI): A day before the counting of votes for the West Bengal assembly elections, two persons were arrested on Sunday for allegedly being involved in a firing incident outside the residence of a BJP leader in North 24 Parganas district, police said.
BJP leader Kundan Singh lodged a police complaint, alleging that a few gunmen fired at his house in the Noapara constituency around Saturday midnight.
Based on the CCTV footage, the two accused were apprehended, a senior officer said.
BJP's Noapara candidate Arjun Singh, in a post on social media, claimed that around 12.05 am, two armed miscreants arrived on a motorcycle at the residence of Kundan Singh, a BJP functionary and secretary of the Barrackpore organisational district, with an "intent to kill him".
According to the BJP leader, the accused are residents of Garulia and are known criminals.
Their names as offenders had been submitted to the Election Commission, he said.
The police officer did not specify whether the two arrested persons were the same individuals named by Arjun Singh.
According to the complaint, one round of firing took place outside Kundan Singh's house, triggering panic in the area.
The BJP candidate also questioned the role of the police, claiming that one of the accused had been detained by the police on the polling day but was later released in the evening.
The Noapara assembly seat went to the polls on April 29.
Several BJP leaders alleged that attempts were being made to create an atmosphere of fear ahead of the counting and weaken the organisation of the opposition parties.
The counting of votes will take place on May 4. Polling for the West Bengal assembly elections was held on April 23 and April 29.
The BJP urged the Election Commission to intervene immediately to ensure peaceful counting.
TMC candidate Somnath Shyam rubbished Arjun Singh’s allegation, claiming that the BJP nominee had orchestrated the firing incident to divert attention from imminent defeat.
“Arjun Singh knows all the gangsters in the Barrackpore belt. Everyone knows about his links with the underworld. Let the police investigate the incident,” Shyam said.
