Mumbai: “That is just how the mahaul is these days, isn’t it?”
Junaid Jamadar, 20, laughed nervously, referring to India’s hostile political climate for Muslims.
A student of Pune’s Savitri Phule university in Pune, Jamadar was attacked and held for hours by a mob of Hindutva vigilantes on 7 April 2024 when he was walking back to his hostel on the campus after a lazy Sunday lunch with five other friends.
The mob singled out Jamadar, asked for his ID card and then punched and kicked him, insisting that he was hanging out with Hindu women because he wanted to “do love jihad” or holy war. It was a reference to a conspiracy theory—first floated in Kerala in 2009, as Article 14 reported—that Hindu nationalists have floated about Muslim men luring Hindu girls and converting them to Islam.
That same night, he filed a first information report (FIR) with the Pune police, the starting point for a criminal investigation.
Jamadar said he had many questions for the police: how did the mob, almost all of them unknown to him, know he was Muslim? Were they tipped off by a classmate or a friend? Were his assailants arrested at all? Are they still in prison? Is the case in trial?
These are questions he is afraid to ask.
This story was originally published in article-14.com. Read the full story here.