By Apoorvanand
Four people are dead in Sambhal. Four Indians, and to be specific, four Muslims. They would be alive had the police treated them as they treat Hindus. The police seldom opens fire to discipline a Hindu mob that is unruly or agitated over any emotional matter. We have seen Hindus setting fire to and attacking houses, vehicles, and religious places of others, and beating up people on several occasions, but we have not read about police reacting the way they did in Sambhal.
We saw videos of Hindu Kanwariyas beating up not only people but also attacking police, yet the police restrained itself from reacting. We know about many other such incidents but have not seen police taking any action the way it did in Sambhal.
The police officials need to ask themselves: would they act in the same manner if they were faced with an agitated Hindu mob, even a stone-pelting Hindu mob?
The police version is that they have not killed any Muslims. According to them, it was firing from Muslims themselves that hit these four men, killing them. This is a new pattern – blaming Muslims themselves for their deaths. We heard the police saying the same thing when 21 Muslims were killed in the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests in Uttar Pradesh in December 2019. The police claimed that the bullets that killed the Muslims did not belong to their official firearms.
It becomes nearly impossible to find out what the truth is when you know that state officials are not interested in it. They are becoming more imaginative with truth. In place of the truth, they create narratives. The Delhi violence was blamed on Muslim activists and the Elgar Parishad violence was blamed on those who were remotely associated with it.
It is not surprising that the police have filed a first information report against the Sambhal MP, who happens to be a Muslim, and the son of the local MLA, blaming them for instigating Muslims, which resulted in violence. It is also not surprising that police are staging flag marches after the violence and killing of the Muslims.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
