Apoorvanand 
Four people are dead in Sambhal. Four Indians, and to be specific, four Muslims. They would be alive had the police treated them as they treat Hindus. The police seldom opens fire to discipline a Hindu mob that is unruly or agitated over any emotional matter. We have seen Hindus setting fire to and attacking houses, vehicles, and religious places of others, and beating up people on several occasions, but we have not read about police reacting the way they did in Sambhal.
We saw videos of Hindu Kanwariyas beating up not only people but also attacking police, yet the police restrained itself from reacting. We know about many other such incidents but have not seen police taking any action the way it did in Sambhal.
The police officials need to ask themselves: would they act in the same manner if they were faced with an agitated Hindu mob, even a stone-pelting Hindu mob?
The police version is that they have not killed any Muslims. According to them, it was firing from Muslims themselves that hit these four men, killing them. This is a new pattern – blaming Muslims themselves for their deaths. We heard the police saying the same thing when 21 Muslims were killed in the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests in Uttar Pradesh in December 2019. The police claimed that the bullets that killed the Muslims did not belong to their official firearms.
It becomes nearly impossible to find out what the truth is when you know that state officials are not interested in it. They are becoming more imaginative with truth. In place of the truth, they create narratives. The Delhi violence was blamed on Muslim activists and the Elgar Parishad violence was blamed on those who were remotely associated with it.
It is not surprising that the police have filed a first information report against the Sambhal MP, who happens to be a Muslim, and the son of the local MLA, blaming them for instigating Muslims, which resulted in violence. It is also not surprising that police are staging flag marches after the violence and killing of the Muslims.
Video screengrabs from Sambhal purporting to show guns being fired.
The police officials, after the death of the Muslims, did not express regret. Instead, they told the grieving family members of the killed, “Before making allegations, they [family of the deceased] should ask why their children were there to pelt stones. They were not going to perform any religious work, holy act, or professional duty.”
The Wire reports the police as claiming that “the stone pelting and gathering of the mob appeared to be an ‘instigated’ act.”
This explains FIRs against the local MP and the son of the MLA – to prove the police charge that the Muslims who gathered after the survey team reached the mosque were prepared and were instigated by conspirators to commit violence. The police say that it cannot be accepted that the violence near the mosque could be spontaneous, a reaction of an angry crowd who heard ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans.
Any neutral observer would ask: isn’t it the duty of the administration and police to prevent a crowd from accompanying the court-appointed person to the mosque, and to stop provocative slogan-mongering? Chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ were heard when the survey was over and the officials were leaving. If it was to be a survey, why was there a crowd? Why were there slogans of ‘Jai Shri Ram’? Why was this provocation allowed by the administration?
But then it also has to do with courts. Imagine a situation in which a Muslim plaintiff approaches a court claiming that a particular temple was earlier a mosque, or a Buddhist asking the court to help establish that a particular temple was earlier a Buddhist shrine. Would the courts entertain such a petition in the first place? Would they allow survey of those temples to find out what existed before the temple came into existence? We know the answer. The courts would dismiss such petitions or even penalise the petitioners because they too believe that there was nothing but Hindu structures in this land before anyone else, and everything happened after them.
We need to ask if the courts would rush surveys in such cases the way it was done in Sambhal. Since when have our courts become so efficient that action is ordered immediately after the filing of a petition? And what about the administration which deploys all its resources to execute the order immediately?
This is what happened in Sambhal.
A petition was filed to ascertain the character of the mosque with the claim that there existed a temple before it. The judge immediately, without issuing notices to the administration and the mosque committee, ordered a survey and appointed a person for this purpose. Within hours of the order, the survey started with the local administration facilitating it. It created resentment in the local Muslim population. The MP pacified them and the survey was conducted.
But two days after that, without any prior information, the team reached the temple again. The administration accompanied the mob and allowed it to reach the mosque. Some people accompanying the survey team allegedly let out ‘Jai Shri Ram’ chants on their way out. It agitated the local Muslims. Stones were thrown. The police were captured on video, appearing to fire directly at the agitating crowd. Four men were killed.
The police refuse to take responsibility. They blame the killings on Muslims. They call the agitation a conspiracy. They file cases against Muslim leaders.
This has become a pattern in India. Muslims now know that the state apparatus is against them and the judiciary coldly initiates processes which push them into a corner. Everything is being done lawfully. Muslims cannot protest or they will be accused of violating the law of the land.
If you ask what happened to a law of this very land – the 1991 Places of Worship Act – you’ll be reminded of the intelligent smile of the former Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud who brushed aside this question and said Hindus have every right to satisfy their curiosity about the nature of a structure. After he showed them the way, Hindu representatives have started developing curiosity about mosques, dargahs, and other religious places across India in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. The indulgence that Chandrachud showed is now being shown by all primary courts. Muslims can protest and resist only at the cost of their lives.