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'Free pass for mobs': India urged to stem vigilante violence against minorities
Source: The Guardian
'Free pass for mobs': India urged to stem vigilante violence against minorities
Human Rights Watch blames police inertia and government failures for lack of justice for those affected
Amrit Dhillon in Delhi
Tue 19 Feb 2019 05.42 GMT
Complicity by local officials and police inertia mean dozens of vigilante murders of religious minorities in India have gone unpunished over the last four years, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
The report urges the government to prosecute mob violence by so-called “cow protection groups” that have targeted Muslims, Dalits and other minorities in the five years since the Hindu nationalist BJP came to power.
The report quoted studies showing that between May 2015 and December 2018 at least 44 people, including 36 Muslims, were killed in attacks over beef consumption and the cattle trade. Cows are honoured by Hindus as selfless nourishers, and the embodiment of the Hindu principle of non-violence. But the zeal to “save” cows is a modern phenomenon. Many Hindus in Kerala and Tamil Nadu eat beef; so do members of less-powerful castes in need of a cheap source of protein. Dalits, India’s most maligned caste, are tasked with disposing of dead cows.
“According to a survey by New Delhi Television, there was a nearly 500% increase in the use of communally divisive language in speeches by elected leaders – 90% of them from the BJP – between 2014 and 2018, as compared to the five years before the BJP came to power,” the report, released on Tuesday, said.
About 90% of these attacks were reported after the BJP came to power in May 2014, and 66% occurred in BJP-run states, the report stated.
-snip-
Human Rights Watch blames police inertia and government failures for lack of justice for those affected
Amrit Dhillon in Delhi
Tue 19 Feb 2019 05.42 GMT
Complicity by local officials and police inertia mean dozens of vigilante murders of religious minorities in India have gone unpunished over the last four years, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
The report urges the government to prosecute mob violence by so-called “cow protection groups” that have targeted Muslims, Dalits and other minorities in the five years since the Hindu nationalist BJP came to power.
The report quoted studies showing that between May 2015 and December 2018 at least 44 people, including 36 Muslims, were killed in attacks over beef consumption and the cattle trade. Cows are honoured by Hindus as selfless nourishers, and the embodiment of the Hindu principle of non-violence. But the zeal to “save” cows is a modern phenomenon. Many Hindus in Kerala and Tamil Nadu eat beef; so do members of less-powerful castes in need of a cheap source of protein. Dalits, India’s most maligned caste, are tasked with disposing of dead cows.
“According to a survey by New Delhi Television, there was a nearly 500% increase in the use of communally divisive language in speeches by elected leaders – 90% of them from the BJP – between 2014 and 2018, as compared to the five years before the BJP came to power,” the report, released on Tuesday, said.
About 90% of these attacks were reported after the BJP came to power in May 2014, and 66% occurred in BJP-run states, the report stated.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/19/a-free-pass-for-mobs-to-kill-india-urged-to-stem-cow-vigilante-violence