A year on, India’s riot victims say justice still unserved

NEW DELHI – The shooter shouted “Victory to Lord Ram,” the Hindu god, before pulling the trigger that sent a bullet into Muhammad Nasir Khan’s left eye.

Khan placed his trembling hand on his bloody eye socket and his fingers slipped deep into the wound. At that moment, Khan was sure he would die.

Khan ended up surviving the violence that killed 53 others, mostly fellow Muslims, when it engulfed his neighborhood in the Indian capital 12 months ago.

But a year after India’s worst communal riots in decades, the 35-year-old is still shaken and his attacker still unpunished. Khan says he’s been unable to get justice due to a lack of police interest in his case.

“My only crime is that my name identifies my religion,” Khan said at his home in New Delhi’s North Ghonda neighborhood.

Many of the Muslim victims of last year’s bloody violence say they have run repeatedly into a refusal by police to investigate complaints against Hindu rioters. Some hope the courts will still come to their help. But others now believe the justice system under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government has become stacked against them.

Adding to the sense of injustice is that accounts from Muslim victims as well as reports from rights groups have indicated that leaders of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and the New Delhi police force tacitly supported the Hindu mobs during the fevered violence.

New Delhi police did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but they insisted last year that their investigation had been fair and that nearly 1,750 people had been booked in relation to the riots – half of them Hindus. Junior Home Minister G. Kishan Reddy has likewise told Parliament that police acted swiftly and impartially.

But a letter one senior police officer sent to investigators five months after the riots appeared to suggest to them they go easy on Hindus suspected of violence, prompting criticism from the Delhi High Court.

Communal clashes in India are not new, with periodic violence breaking out ever since the British partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. But in the last seven years, observers say, religious polarization fueled by the Hindu nationalist base of Modi’s party has further deepened the fault lines and raised tensions.

Many believe the catalyst for last year’s riots was a fiery speech by Kapil Mishra, a leader from Modi’s party. On Feb. 23, 2020, he gave police an ultimatum, warning them to break up a sit-in by demonstrators protesting against a new citizenship law Muslims say is discriminatory, or he and his supporters would do it themselves.

When his supporters moved in, it triggered pitched street battles that quickly turned into riots. For the next three days, Hindu mobs rampaged through streets hunting down Muslims – in some cases burning them alive in their homes – and torching entire neighborhoods, including shops and mosques.

Mishra rejects the idea that he’s responsible for the riots, calling the claims “propaganda” to cover up the “pre-planned genocide of Hindus by Muslims.” On Monday, he said his party had no links to the violence, but added, “what I did last year I will do it again if needed,” referring to his speech hours before the riots started.

Many in the area’s Hindu community accuse Muslims of starting the violence in a bid to make India look bad.

A year on, many Muslim victims of the riots are still cowering in fear of further bloodletting. Hundreds have abandoned their gutted homes and moved elsewhere. Those who chose to stay have fortified their neighborhoods with metal gates in case of more mob attacks. Many say they fear those responsible will never be held to account.

“Everything has changed since the riots,” Khan said. “I think I am slowly losing all my hopes of justice.”

Khan spent 20 days recovering in the hospital after being shot. Since then, he has been on a search for justice that he says has been impeded by police at every turn.

Khan’s official police complaint, seen by The Associated Press, named at least six Hindus from his neighborhood whom he said participated in the violence.

“The accused still come to my home and threaten me with killing my entire family,” Khan said in the complaint, adding that he was willing to identify them in court.

46,000 doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine that were delayed by weather began arriving in the state. The head of the state’s Bureau of Child, Family and Community Wellness said officials would work overtime to administer those doses along with this week’s regularly scheduled shipment.

President Joe Biden has said that every American who wants a vaccine will be able to get one by the end of July.

But demand continues to outpace limited supplies distributed by the U.S. government.

Executives from five companies with contracts to supply shots to the U.S. – Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Novavax – testified about supply issues Tuesday before Congress’ Energy and Commerce Committee.

Looking ahead to summer, Pfizer and Moderna executives said they expect to complete delivery of 300 million doses each, and J&J aims to provide an additional 100 million doses – more than enough to vaccinate every American adult.

Arizona will increase vaccinations by opening its fourth state-run mass vaccination clinic, state health department officials said. In addition, transportation costs to and from vaccination appointments now will be covered for people enrolled in Arizona’s Medicaid program, Gov. Doug Ducey said.

“This change will make it easier for our most vulnerable Arizonans ... to get vaccinated,” Ducey said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said 11 mobile clinics will open in California’s vast Central Valley, an agricultural region that’s been hit hard by the coronavirus. They’ll be used mainly to vaccinate farmworkers who don’t have transportation to larger vaccination sites or can’t navigate the state’s online signup portal.

Newsom said the state also is sending 34,000 extra vaccine doses to that area from a pharmacy that wasn’t using them quickly enough.

Meanwhile, Tenessee’s top health official said Tuesday that more than 2,400 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine went to waste over the past month in Shelby County, which encompasses Memphis, while local officials sat on tens of thousands of shots that they thought had already gone into arms.

Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey said a Department of Health investigation over the weekend found issues dating to Feb. 3 that included spoiled doses, an excessive vaccine inventory, insufficient record-keeping and no formal process to manage soon-toexpire vaccines. A federal investigation is also expected.