Hyderabad: Vigilante groups owing allegiance to right-wing Hindutva organisations – which have made it a habit of heightening activities ahead of Bakrid – have done so again, this time making their campaign so loud that it led to a clash between two groups in Medak town of Telangana on Saturday (June 15) evening.
A bandh was observed in the town on Sunday on a call given by the Bharatiya Janata Party, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Hindu Vahini to protest against the alleged moving of cattle to slaughter houses by Muslims as a sacrifice for Bakrid. A dozen people were injured in the clashes between two rival groups when cattle being transported was intersected by members of Go Samraksh Dalam.
Members of the BJP were also allegedly involved in the violence.
The violence
It all started with the movement of cattle from a madrasa to a slaughter house around 6:30 pm on June 15. Forty male oxen were being shifted for sacrifice when men from the Dalam accosted the herd keeper and asked him to surrender the animals. Teenaged boys who were playing cricket in the lane confronted the Dalam members and hit them with bats and stumps.
The incident was preceded by vets and police certifying the age, health and sex of another herd of 60 male oxen at a different site. But there was no trouble there as the police and a team of veterinary department supervised the transactions.
As information about the attack on five Hindu men near the madrasa went viral, about 200 men rushed to the spot in support of them. Another group backing the madrasa also gathered in large numbers.
Medak town during the clashes. Photo: By arrangement.
Both groups clashed even as the police rushed to the spot and shifted the animals to the police station. The heated exchange between two groups continued at the police station.
Later, a Hindu mob went on a rampage and attacked nearby shops owned by Muslims and vehicular traffic with sticks. Soon there was stone throwing between the two groups, leading to lathicharge by police.
A hospital where seven persons who received head injuries were admitted was also ransacked. The imam of the madrasa, Mumbai Arif, who was also injured, has been admitted to a hospital in Hyderabad. Two persons who suffered minor knife injuries were admitted to a private hospital at Miyapur in Hyderabad.
The Hindu mob staged a sit-in protest on the road and went on a procession raising ‘Jai Sri Ram’ slogans and obstructing traffic.
The clashes took place on the main thoroughfare in the town, which has offices of the Superintendent of Police, Deputy Superintendent of Police and the local police station. Calm was restored around 10 pm on Saturday.
The Inspector General of Police of Hyderabad Multi Zone-I, A.V. Ranganath, said it was unfortunate that BJP members were involved in the incident as “cow vigilantes”. The police were trying to identify the culprits of the violence, he said. Additional police reinforcements reached the town to step up security.
Ranganath said 45 persons from both groups were taken into custody. He said it was unfortunate that the vigilante group took the law into their own hands instead of lodging a complaint with the police.
BJP district president Gaddam Srinivas and town president M. Nayam Prasad were among the nine arrested.
Union minister of state for home and BJP leader Bandi Sanjay Kumar called up senior police officials to warn them against booking cases on the “victims”.
The claim of madrasa and Muslim leaders that they were transporting only oxen to the slaughter house was stoutly denied by the Go Rakshana Dalam. Dalam district general secretary Chinnaboina Srinivas claimed that “90% of the cattle were cows”.
He also said that the incident could have been averted by timely action on the part of the police. Srinivas claimed that the Dalam had lodged a complaint at the police station about the presence of cows in the madrasa but the force did not turn up for three to four hours.
Ignoring the warning signs?
The incident was not unique in Telangana; similar action by Hindutva groups has been reported every year in the month before Bakrid at several places, particularly Hyderabad. But the communal overtones and resulting violence have become more stark. Another such attempt to obstruct cattle movement near Karmanghat in Hyderabad two years ago also met with stiff resistance from the Muslim community.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MLA from Karwan, Kausar Mohiuddin, said the Hindutva organisations had sharpened their fangs after the BJP won eight parliament seats in the state recently. Party president Asaduddin Owaisi was in touch with Director General of Police Ravi Gupta to see that the situation was under control, he added.
Medak – one of the eight Lok Sabha seats wrested by the BJP – had in the past witnessed a bloody clash between Hindus and Muslims following an offensive social media post about a mosque near Sangareddy. The town was under curfew for two days in 2012 as houses and vehicles were burnt by rioters.
A view of the bandh at Medak town on June 16. Photo: By arrangement.
Majlis Bachao Tehreek leader Amjadullah Khan told The Wire that Hindutva activists obstructing oxen being transported had become routine every year. They even took away oxen meant for sacrifice on Bakrid from a madrasa in Mahboobnagar illegally, he said. But the police booked the madrasa management under the Atrocities to Animals Act for illegal detention.
Khan said the slaughter of aged oxen is not prohibited by law. But Hindutva organisations projected it as cow slaughter. He blamed the government for not acting on intelligence reports warning that Hindu fundamentalists were likely to create trouble ahead of Bakrid. The police also did not take any action against the construction of temples on Muslim graveyards at Velpur and Indalwai in Nizamabad constituency represented by BJP MP D. Arvind Kumar, he alleged.
A Muslim elder, Maulana Jawed, said the leniency of the police resulted in the mob targeting Muslims’ properties in Medak. Another leader, Syed Ishrat Ali, said the animals that were supposed to be moved to a slaughter house were thoroughly checked by police and vets.
A vigilante group stages a sit-in at Medak. Photo: by arrangement.
The Medak district president of the VHP, Malkajgiri Satyanarayana, claimed that the police sent Go Rakshak Dalam members to jail though they were at the receiving end of the violence.
Medak Superintendent of Police B. Balaswamy said the incident occurred at the spur of the moment. It was not pre-planned as made out by both groups, he claimed.
