June 25 was the anniversary of the Emergency imposed 42 years ago in India by Indira Gandhi, when civil liberties were suspended. PM Modi yesterday termed it ‘a dark night no Indian can forget’. But Modi remains silent about today’s undeclared emergency in which orchestrated mob lynching of minorities – and specifically Muslims and Dalits – has become the prime expression of state terror, with the government and its RSS-affiliated stormtroopers lethally mobilising deep-rooted forms of social violence to further its genocidal project of Hindu Rashtra.
The petition below urging the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Rita Izsák-Ndiaye, to investigate the growing human rights emergency in India, particularly the attacks on Muslims and Dalits, was written even before the lynching of Zafar Hussein, a CPI(ML) activist who was trying to stop sexual harassment and public shaming of poor women in the name of Swachh Bharat, or of 15-year-old Junaid on June 22.
Junaid was travelling from Delhi, where he had gone with his brother and two friends for Eid shopping, to Ballabhgarh in a local EMU train when he was killed by a mob of fellow passengers. His brother Shakir was also badly injured. Shaqir, 23, admitted to the AIIMS Trauma Centre in Delhi, told the Indian Express, tears rolling down his cheeks, “They flung our skull caps, pulled my brother’s beard, slapped us, and taunted us about eating cow meat. Beef is not even cooked in our village. Once we reached Ballabhgarh, they took out knives. They were older than us — probably in their 30s — so we couldn’t do anything.”
As a fact finding report by CPI(ML) and AISA explains, “For Junaid’s father Jalalludin and his family, which lives in Khandawali village, about 4 kms from Ballabgarh, a joyful and festive time turned into a period of mourning and grief. Their cheerful and promising boy Junaid who used to study in a Madrasa- Faiz-e-Subhaniya in Mewat, had come home for Eid… The family happily gave their children money to buy clothes from the market and got busy in preparations for Eid. Now, Junaid’s mother weeps without ceasing.”
Please sign and share this petition urging the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Rita Izsák-Ndiaye, to investigate the growing human rights emergency in India, particularly the attacks on Muslims and Dalits.