Some individuals of Slum dwellers of Parla village in Gurugram’s Sector 70, vacate their slums, after Monday’s assault on a Hindu non secular procession in adjoining Nuh district, in Haryana on Wednesday, August 2, 2023.
| Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR
A day after open threats have been issued to them, residents of a slum cluster in Palra village of Gurugram’s Sector 70A on Wednesday, August 2, 2023, mentioned majority of the households, most of them from elements of West Bengal, fled the realm whereas the remaining reside in concern with some spending the night time in a wooded space even because the Gurugram police proceed to disclaim any incident within the space.
The flames of the communal violence, that started within the Mewat area’s Nuh on Monday after clashes broke out throughout a spiritual procession of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, unfold to Gurugram and different districts of southern Haryana by Tuesday. On Tuesday, a mob of members of some proper wing outfits assaulted the slum dwellers of Palra village and advised them to vacate the slums and “go back to where you came from”. Some rubbish and tyre puncture outlets have been additionally set ablaze within the space within the night time.
Locals mentioned practically 800-900 households reside within the slums on hire with most of them employed as rubbish collectors, or home staff or housekeeping workers in close by residential societies.
Nabeel Ahmad, a local of West Bengal’s Dakshin Dinajpur who cleans automobiles in societies, mentioned about 25 motorbikes with two-three males every got here to the realm round 11 a.m. on Tuesday and began thrashing random individuals whereas asking for id proof.
“While most of them carried lathis, some even have swords and guns. They asked our names or ID proofs and started thrashing the Muslims. They said all Muslims must leave the area by 4 p.m. or they would burn houses, said Mr. Ahmad, adding that the men thrashed women too. “Maybe they wanted to make a statement that even women will not be spared.”
Police inaction
He mentioned that despite the fact that the police got here quickly after, the mob returned round 5.30 p.m. “One person from the mob slapped me in front of the police. The police tried to disperse them but did not take any action,” he mentioned.
Shabana Bibi, a home employee, mentioned about 8-10 households spent the night time in a close-by jungle space.
“I have three small children, I fed them biscuits with water and slept them on the ground in the jungle. We were so scared after the thrashing and threats that we could not stay here,” she mentioned.
Shafiuddin Ali, a diabetic who got here to reside along with his son about seven months in the past from a village close to Kolkata, mentioned about 90% of Muslim households from the cluster left since Tuesday.
“Those who are left either have gotten their tickets for today [Wednesday] or don’t have the money to buy a train ticket. Some like me don’t have anywhere else to go as we came here after selling our everything in the village,” he mentioned.
He mentioned the police have been current within the space on Tuesday night time. “They left in the morning and asked us to make arrangements for ourselves now. Even our landlords have asked us to vacate amid the situation,” he mentioned.
Blames social media
Siddhant Jain, Deputy Commissioner of Police (south Gurugram), nonetheless, blamed rumours on social media for the concern amongst individuals and mentioned no one was “asked to leave the area and everything was peaceful”.
“This was a fake news doing the rounds on social media, no such threat was given to people from any community. Some stray incident might have happened on Tuesday but we have sufficient deployment of local police and paramilitary forces in the area to deal with any situation,” he advised The Hindu.
He mentioned 12 FIRs had been registered and preventive motion taken towards six individuals underneath CrPC Sections 107 and 151 in south Gurugram. Nearly 800 personnel, together with two corporations of the Rapid Action Force (RAF) and native police, have been additionally deployed within the area, the DCP mentioned.
(Names of slum dwellers modified to hide id as a result of their concern of being attacked.)
