By Kaushik Raj And Srishti Jaswal
Sanjauli, Himachal Pradesh: News that Muslim men had beaten up Hindu men in a brawl in Shimla, the state capital of Himachal Pradesh, led to a series of protests against Muslims in the state run by the Congress Party since 2022 and before that by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for five years.
The protests started on 1 September 2024, with calls to demolish a mosque in Sanjauli town—nine km from the brawl in a locality called Malyana—where the men were rumoured to have taken refuge and spread to at least 22 towns and villages.
People sat close to the mosque and recited the Hanuman Chalisa, a devotional hymn popular among Hindus, and slogans such as “Sanjauli mein avaidh masjid giraani hogi”, “Avaidh pravasi nahi chalenge” (The illegal mosque must be raised in Sanjauli, Illegal outsiders won’t be tolerated) were raised.
At the protest, sitting next to the Hindu man who was injured in the brawl with the Muslims, a Congress ward councillor from Bhatta Kuffar, a locality in Shimla, Narinder Thakur, announced, “Everybody has decided that we have to boycott them.”
Elected for the first time in May 2023, Thakur, 42, said he had been a dedicated worker” of the Congress Party for the past 15 years.
Speaking over the phone to Article 14 on 19 October, Thakur said he discovered the mosque was an illegal construction from a WhatsApp message.
“The Hindu men who were beaten were known to me. They came to me and told me that this has happened,” said Thakur. “Then, we met with the locals and decided to protest in front of the mosque in Sanjauli.”
This story was originally published in article-14.com. Read the full story here.