Mumbai: On Tuesday, January 23, when a mob of over 200-300 men descended on Sector 5 of Shanti Nagar in Mira Road, Mumbai, they already knew their target quite well. Shops sporting saffron flags with ‘Jai Shri Ram’ printed on them had to be spared, the rest were all to be attacked. Saba Boutique was one such establishment owned by Muslims among the otherwise Hindu-dominated shopping neighbourhood.
“It was a passing commotion,” Shamsher Alam, owner of the 13-year-old boutique, told The Wire. The men, most of them in their teens and 20s, barged into the boutique and pelted stones. Almost all of them had backpacks and appeared to have stored big stones in them. They hurled stones at the shop, destroyed glass panes and mannequins placed outside the boutique and moved ahead. “It was all over within 30 seconds,” Alam added. His son and brother-in-law were injured in the attack.
The crowd had then moved to other shop establishments belonging to Muslims in the neighbouring lane. Even as the attack continued, the local police from the Naya Nagar police station were seen standing on the street, just 20 metres away. “But they didn’t stop the mob. It was almost as if the police were there for the mob’s safety,” he claimed.
Today, January 24, Alam and other shop owners who incurred massive losses in the attack had visited the police station. The police, they claimed, refused to file a first information report (FIR) despite producing damning evidence. In many other shops that The Wire visited, shop owners had identical stories to narrate.
Shaikh Faiyyaz Ahmed, the owner of Chote Nawab shoe shop showed CCTV footage of the time when his shop was attacked. Young boys, most likely in their teens, could be seen pelting stones at the shop. They too had heavy backpacks, filled with stones. Some had their faces covered, many didn’t care to cover their faces.
In sector 3, a tempo driver was attacked by the mob. His tempo had “Rashid Tempo Service” painted on the back. 21-year-old Mohammad Tariq and two others were injured in this attack. At a mobile shop close by another 49-year-old man was injured in the attack. Mohammad Umar, originally from Gujarat, works at a local optician. The shop, although had a neutral-sounding name ‘Blue Eye’, was still attacked. That Umar says happened for two reasons. One, they didn’t have a saffron flag outside the shop and two, the men with their beards “looked Muslim”. The apprehension of being attacked for not sporting a saffron flag makes sense as another optical shop Gangar Eyenation was attacked too. The shop, owned by a Hindu person, didn’t have a saffron flag hoisted outside the shop.
Advocate Sachin Salvi appearing for the victims of the attack told The Wire after persuing the police for a long time, they finally filed FIR in four cases. One of them was against a mob that attacked a 16-year-old boy who was attacked on the road. “The boy had to be hospitalised after the attack. The police were reluctant to file FIRs but when we refused to budge, they finally took the FIR,” Salvi said.
January 23 was day 3 of the violence that broke out in Mira Road, a fast- developing neighbourhood in Thane district. According to the 2011 census data, Mira Road has over 16% Muslim population. In the past decade, as the population of Mumbai began to burst at the seams, people had to move to faraway suburban areas like Mira Road and Bhayander.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here .