After days of sustained violence in Jaffrabad, Seelampur, and other parts of North East Delhi, students of Delhi University (DU) hold a protest gathering at Arts Faculty to protest against the communal violence perpetrated by in these areas.
On 23rd February 2020, Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad had called a Bharat Bandh in favour of reservations and against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), National Register of Citizen (NRC), and National Population Register (NPR) exercise, in response to which women of Seelampur and Jaffrabad organized a Chakka Jam on the same day. The violence perpetrated by rioters allegedly associated with Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on the same day, and with the violence sustaining till now, many are calling the riots a state sponsored pogrom of the muslim community and the protestors against CAA, with the police acting as silent bystanders while Delhi burns at the hands of the rioters.
On the morning of 25th February, Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) organised a protest gathering against the state sponsored violence in Northeast Delhi. Beginning at 1:30 p.m, the protest had various speakers from the affected areas, students, and performances from DU Theatre societies.
Shaurya, a student pursuing Masters in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, who had been volunteering at the protest sight for the last month, shared, “ the incidents that took place yesterday are commonly being blamed by the media on one identified gunman who has been arrested, who does belong to the Muslim community. Hence the media is blaming the community as a whole for inciting violence. This is not a riot between two communities, but a orchestrated plan by the RSS and the government acting in collusion with the police force aiding the rioters. The violence began two days ago when Kapil Mishra went to Maujpur- Babarpur with a team of RSS supporters and invited violence and started stone pelting.”
Talking about yesterday, when the levels of violence reached a new level with arson and shootings, he said, “Yesterday, RSS leaders in these areas clearly incited violence, with no police action being taken even after multiple calls being made to them, along with perpetrators being identified on video footage, the police did not act. A group of concerned citizens from various groups met the Joint Commissioner of police who said that the investigation had not yet led to any conclusive results and refused to send any police to the area. Therefore, it is important to identify that this is a state orchestrated attack against muslims who are protesting against the NRC-CAA-NPR.”
Feature Image Credits: DU Beat Archives
Prabhanu Kumar Das
