Modi Government Accused Of 'Witch Hunt' Against Muslim Activists

A wire barricade in Srinagar, Kashmir, India’s majority-Muslim region under lockdown since August 2019. Photo by Zaffar Iqbal.

NEW DELHI — During an unprecedented lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus, several human rights groups in India accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration of a witch hunt against Muslim activists and students who led protests against a new citizenship law deemed discriminatory against Muslims.

India had been rocked since December with protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which fast-tracks citizenship for religious minorities of all major South Asian faiths coming from some neighboring countries, except Islam. The law came amid rising Hindu nationalist sentiment over the past year with the start of Modi’s second term and a proposed citizens register that has so far left out nearly 2 million people in India’s northeast, mostly Muslim Indians with ancestry from Bangladesh but also including many Hindus.

Coinciding with U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to India, riots in Delhi killed more than 50 people and left many more injured, mostly Muslims. It’s the worst religious violence India has seen since the 1980’s.

Since the Indian government announced a nation-wide lockdown in late March, Delhi Police (who report to Modi’s administration) arrested several Muslim activists, including students, involved in the anti-citizenship law protests and accused of instigating the February riot. Coronavirus restrictions eased in May, causing working class neighborhoods to bustle with activity again while those who can afford to remain indoors amid rising infection rates.

Early last month, the police arrested Safoora Zargar and Meeran Haider – both research scholars at Jamia Milia Islamia university in New Delhi – for their alleged role in the Delhi riots. Zargar is in the second trimester of her pregnancy.

Zargar and Haider are part of the Jamia Coordination Committee that played a leading role in organizing several protests in the national capital against the new citizenship law. Several anti-CAA protesters from across the country have been arrested, according to media reports, for allegedly instigating the Delhi riots.

Many blame the riots on a local leader of Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party, Kapil Mishra, because a few hours before the neighborhood erupted with violence he had threatened to clear out the anti-CAA protesters, who were mostly Muslim, by mobilizing his Hindu supporters. Dozens of shops, homes, and vehicles were set aflame, as gangs of Hindus and Muslims clashed with homemade guns, petrol bombs and stones.

Muslim residents in the area accused the Delhi police of siding with Hindu mobs during the riots. Mishra hasn’t been arrested.

The United Nations Human Rights office called the citizenship law “fundamentally discriminatory in nature” and critics fear that the Modi government will couple the law with their proposed citizenship register, allowing them to disenfranchise Muslims if they fail to provide required documentation, a common problem in India.

On April 26, the Delhi police booked Shifa-Ur-Rehman, the President of Jamia Millia Islamia Alumni Association, and another member of the Jamia Coordination Committee under an anti-terrorist law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), notorious in India for allowing the government to jail the accused for up to seven years without evidence. Rehman is accused of involvement in the February Delhi riots.  Another Muslim activist, Umar Khalid, was booked under the same law. Both the Jamia students, Zargar and Haider, have also been charged under the UAPA.

Calling the arrests “ceaseless harassment” and “torture of protesters," a group of 300 people, including teachers, scholars, and journalists from across India, wrote an open letter on May 1 condemning the attack. 

“The police have used peoples' isolation and suspension of public activity to launch their clampdown,” the letter read. "Looking at all the cases together, we firmly believe that the extremely draconian and regressive amended UAPA law has been strategically put in place to exterminate both, dissent and dissidents during the lockdown period due to COVID-19 pandemic.” 

In another letter dated April 30, a group of over 60 human rights activists, including lawyers, historians, scholars, and journalists, expressed concern over the same arrests, calling them "fictitious cases" to curb political dissent.

"Students of Jamia played an important role in the protests against the CAA,” said Faizan Alam, a political science student at Jamia Milia Islamia University. “The arrest of Jamia students and other activists is an attempt to silence the voices of dissent.” 

With these arrests, the government is trying to create a narrative to blame Muslims for the riots in Delhi, Alam said. 

In another open letter dated April 19, a group of Indian public figures, including some Bollywood filmmakers, condemned the police saying, “A riot in which the [Muslim] minorities suffered the maximum damage, both in terms of lives and livelihoods, has now become a pretext for the Delhi Police to further witch-hunt activists, most of whom also come from the minority community.” 

Calling the charges “a twisted fairy tale that the Delhi Police is trying to weave,” they urged the police to “stop abusing the lockdown, respect the human rights of our fellow citizens” and release the students and activists arrested.

In a tweet, the Delhi Police said that it is has done its job sincerely and impartially: "Delhi Police is committed to upholding the Rule of Law and bringing the conspirators, abettors, and culprits of NE [Northeast Delhi’s] riots to books and secure justice to innocent victims. It will not be deterred by false propaganda and rumors floated by some vested elements who try to twist facts to their convenience..."

The UAPA has been used the most often to arrest political dissidents and journalist in Kashmir, a region disputed with Pakistan and on an Indian military-enforced lockdown since August after the Indian government stripped its status from a state to a territory. The lockdown was characterized for months by its total ban on the Internet. Indian soldiers are a heavy presence across the region, where an armed resistance to Indian rule has existed since 1989. About 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

In April, police in Kashmir arrested the photojournalist, Masrat Zahra, under UAPA for allegedly uploading posts glorifying “anti-national activities” on social media, the police said. A few days after Zahra, another Kashmiri journalist and author, Gowhar Geelani, was booked under the same law for “unlawful activities” through social media posts. 

“It’s a common way to harass journalists in Kashmir,” said Imran Ali, a Kashmiri journalist. “The government wants to create a fear psychosis in the minds of local journalists to stop them from reporting the truth, but it only strengthens our resolve.”

On May 13, a 25-year-old Kashmiri civilian was shot dead by Indian security forces as he entered his vehicle, triggering anti-India protests. The security forces said the man ignored their signals to stop at check points, while a witness said the man stopped his car before the soldiers shot him.

Avinash Giri is a Delhi-based reporter and Poynter-Koch fellow for Religion Unplugged.