NEW DELHI: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Haryana has demolished hundreds of homes, shops and shanties in Nuh, the state’s only Muslim-majority district.
An Indian court has asked whether days of demolitions of homes and businesses of mainly Muslim residents in Haryana were “an exercise of ethnic cleansing”.
Ordering a halt to four days of bulldozing of properties in the state’s Nuh district, Punjab and Haryana High Court said, “The issue also arises whether the buildings belonging to a particular community are being brought down under the guise of law and order problem and an exercise of ethnic cleansing is being conducted by the state.”
The bench of Justice GS Sandhawalia and Justice Harpreet Kaur Jeewan also observed that the state authorities had conducted the demolition drive “without following the procedure established by law” or issuing any prior notices to the people owning the properties.
The observation by the Punjab and Haryana High Court is a rare example of India’s judiciary asking a question that rights groups and experts around the world are already asking.
In recent years, several rights groups have condemned the BJP for making the bulldozing of properties owned by mainly Muslim in cases of violence and even political dissenters, a common practice in the states governed by the right-wing party.
Besides the bulldozing of homes, police also arrested more than 150 people mostly Muslims, accusing them of participating in the violence. Last week’s violence in Haryana began after far-right Hindu groups took out a procession in Nuh.
The participants of the procession organised by the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its youth wing Bajrang Dal, were armed with sticks, swords, tridents, and even guns, and raised provocative anti-Muslim slogans as they marched through Muslim neighbourhoods.
A video that went viral before the march featured Mohit Yadav, popularly known as Monu Manesar, a notorious Hindu vigilante accused of lynching two Muslim men in February this year over allegations of cow slaughter. He is also named in several other cases of anti-Muslim violence.
In the video, Manesar purportedly invited Hindus to join the procession “in large numbers” in Nuh. Several media reports said the video became the trigger for the violence after some Muslims allegedly pelted stones at the procession and burned some vehicles along the highway.
