Delhi violence: Clashes in India's capital leave 22 dead - The - The Washington Post

Adnan Abidi Reuters Security forces stand guard in an area where riots broke out this week in Delhi.

NEW DELHI — The sit-in where women had gathered to protest a new citizenship law was gone, the posters torn and trampled. The mosque next door stood charred and silent, its floor smeared with blood. Stillness filled a major road, empty except for stray dogs picking their way through debris.

A tense calm settled on a swath of India’s capital Wednesday after a stunning outbreak of communal violence this week left at least 22 dead. The riots are the worst such clashes to hit Delhi in decades and came as President Trump made his first official visit to India.

Mobs of Hindus and Muslims had clashed on roads and alleyways in northeast Delhi, throwing stones and crude gasoline bombs. At least four mosques were torched, as were scores of homes and businesses. Witnesses said that instead of stopping the violence, police joined crowds shouting Hindu nationalist slogans and fired indiscriminately.

[Trump’s second day in India: Violence in Delhi and support for Modi on ‘religious freedom’]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/riots-in-new-delhi-leave-at-least-20-dead/2020/02/26/2eef6b26-c5ad-4077-ab16-09a29eac4a67_video.html

On Wednesday afternoon, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended days of silence on the riots. He issued an appeal for calm, urging people in Delhi to “maintain peace and brotherhood at all times” and restore normalcy.

This week’s violence marked the second time in Modi’s political career that he has presided over a significant episode of communal violence. In 2002, when he was chief minister of the state of Gujarat, more than 1,000 people were killed, mostly Muslims, in three days of riots. A court-appointed panel cleared Modi of involvement in the violence.

[Why protests are erupting over India’s new citizenship law]

Adnan Abidi

Reuters

A man walks over debris after clashes erupted between people demonstrating for and against a new citizenship law in Delhi.

The riots in Delhi took place against a backdrop of rising tensions over a controversial citizenship law passed by the Modi government in December. Critics say the measure is unconstitutional and deepens fears that Muslims will be treated like second-class citizens in Modi’s India. Protests against the law have erupted nationwide, with Indians of all religions taking part.

But Muslims have led the opposition to the law. Meanwhile, members of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have vilified the protesters, calling them traitors who deserve to be shot and seeking to associate them with India’s rival Pakistan. One such leader, Kapil Mishra, helped trigger this week’s violence: He threatened to clear a sit-in conducted by Muslim women, sparking a clash between supporters and opponents of the citizenship law.

The way the police responded to the violence in Delhi points to a troubling conclusion, said Ashutosh Varshney, a political scientist at Brown University who has researched communal clashes in India. “The cops either looked away or participated or egged [rioters] on,” he said, adding that that means “state connivance and state culpability — it’s a pogrom.”

M.S. Randhawa, a spokesman for the Delhi Police, told reporters Wednesday that “sufficient force was deployed” in the northeastern part of the city, and additional paramilitary personnel were brought in to assist. The “situation is under control,” he said.

In the afternoon, Ajit Doval, India’s national security adviser, toured a riot-hit area on foot to reassure residents. An agitated young woman in a burqa who said she was a student approached him. “We’re not safe,” she said. “You don’t have to worry,” he responded. “I give you my word.”

Tania Dutta contributed to this report.

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2020-02-26 15:39:00Z
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