At least 22 people killed in riots amid Trump state visit to India
● Hindu mobs attack Muslims protesting new citizenship law
least 22 people were killed and 189 injured in three days of clashes in New Delhi that coincided with US president Donald Trump’s first state visit to India. The death toll is expected to rise as hospitals continue to take in the wounded, authorities said yesterday.
Violence between Hindu mobs and Muslims protesting a new citizenship law that fast-tracks naturalisation for foreign-born religious minorities of all major faiths in South Asia except Islam left shops, Muslim shrines and public vehicles smouldering.
The dead included a policeman and an intelligence bureau officer. The government has banned public assembly in the affected areas.
An uneasy calm prevailed in the troubled areas yesterday.
Officials reported no new violence as large police reinforcements patrolled the area.
National security adviser Ajit Doval toured the region and assured fear-stricken residents their lives will be protected. Mr Doval was responding to a complaint from a girl student that police were not protecting them properly and mobs had vandalised the area and set shops and vehicles on fire.
While riots wracked northeastern New Delhi over the previous days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted a lavish reception for Mr Trump, including a rally in his home state of Gujarat attended by more than 100,000 people and the signing of an agreement to purchase more than $3 billion (£2.3bn) of American helicopters and other military hardware.
Mr Modi yesterday broke his silence on the clashes, tweeting that “peace and harmony are central to [India’s] ethos”. “I appeal to my sisters and brothers of Delhi to maintain peace and brotherhood at all times,” he said.
New Delhi’s top elected offiat cial, Chief Minister Arvind Kerjiwal, called for Mr Modi’s home minister Amit Shah to send the army to areas in a north-eastern corner of the sprawling capital affected by the riots.
Police characterised the situation as tense, but under control. Schools remained closed.
Sonia Gandhi – a leader of the Congress party, which is India’s main opposition group – called for Mr Shah to resign.
She accused Mr Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of creating an environan ment of hatred and its leaders of inciting violence with provocative speeches that sought to paint protesters against the citizenship law as anti-nationalist, Pakistan-funded Muslims.
New Delhi’s High Court ordered the police to review videos of hate speeches allegedly made by three leaders of Modi’s BJP and decide on prosecuting them, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
The clashes escalated Tuesday, according to Rouf Khan, a resident of Mustafabad – area in the capital’s northeast. Mr Khan said mobs with iron rods, bricks and bamboo sticks attacked the homes of Muslims while chanting “Jai Shri Ram” or “Victory to Lord Ram”, the popular Hindu god of the religious epic “Ramayana”.
As Air Force One flew Mr Trump and his delegation out of New Delhi late Tuesday, Muslim families huddled in a mosque in the city’s northeast, praying that Hindu mobs would not burn it down.
“After forcing their way inside the homes, they went on a rampage and started beating people and breaking household items,” Mr Khan said of the mobs, adding that he and his family had to run and take shelter inside a mosque that he said was guarded by thousands of Muslim men.
“I don’t know if our house was burned or not, but when we were running away we heard them asking people to pour kerosene and burn everything down,” Mr Khan said.
Some of the dead had bullet wounds, according to Dr. Sunil Kumar, medical director of the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital.