India rocked by religious riots as violence takes focus from Trump visit
About 160 injured as Hindus and Muslims clash in street protests over divisive new citizenship act
DONALD TRUMP’S visit to India was yesterday overshadowed by violent sectarian clashes that left 13 people dead and saw shops, homes and religious sites come under attack.
Armed police were deployed to the Indian capital as Hindu nationalists battled Muslim protesters against a religiously loaded citizenship law.
Stick-wielding mobs attacked each other in north-east Delhi as battles raged into the night over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CCA), an edict by the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) that excludes Muslims from claiming asylum.
About 160 people were injured, many of them by gunshots, as authorities fruitlessly sought to limit the rioting by forbidding gatherings of more than four people.
Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, said police were reporting they could “not do anything” and urged the federal government to clarify whether tear gas or “lathi” rods should be used to impose order.
Amit Shah, the national home minister, whose ministry controls law and order in the capital region, met senior Delhi government officials and promised to deploy more police if they were needed, Mr Kejriwal said. Delhi residents complained that the police force had been left unable to respond to the clashes because 5,000 officers were assigned as security to the Trump family’s tour of the capital – which went off peacefully elsewhere.
Tensions reached boiling point yesterday as a video clip went viral on social media showing Delhi police forcing badly beaten Muslim youths to sing a nationalist song. Rana Ayub, one of the country’s foremost journalists, tweeted footage of Hindu nationalists tearing the loudspeaker off a mosque’s minaret, and pictures of a Hindu temple that had been vandalised – presumably by Muslim rioters. Broadcaster NDTV reported three of its reporters and a cameraman had been attacked by a mob on the north-eastern fringe of the city. Some journalists reported they were let go after revealing they were Hindu.
Witnesses also reported that several people had been forcibly stripped to check if they were circumcised, and hence likely to be Muslim or not.
Mr Trump refused to be drawn on the violence at a press conference before he attended a grand banquet hosted by the Indian president, saying it was an “internal issue”.
Instead, the President announced that the US had signed an agreement with India to supply it with £2.3billion of military equipment.
Yesterday’s violence has been linked in particular to former BJP legislator Kapil Mishra’s threat that anyone demonstrating against the CAA at the time of the state visit would be forcibly evicted from India.
The BJP have denied all such claims and blame the opposition for “orchestrating” the violence in order to defame India during Mr Trump’s visit. Passed in December, the CAA has provoked countrywide protests – especially in Delhi – with 25 deaths reported before the latest unrest.
It offers Indian citizenship to religious minorities from the neighbouring Islamic countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. However Muslims, who constitute around 20 per cent of India’s population of over 1.3 billion, are deliberately excluded.