Shubhojeet Dey
THE shroud of uncertainty had barely lifted from the environs of Ghatmeeka, where few days ago a young man named Waris was allegedly lynched by cow vigilantes, when the news of the brutal murders of Junaid (35) and Nasir (25) shook the Meo village on February 16. Three abductions and killings within a fortnight, allegedly at the hand of the same outfit led by a local upstart popularly known as Monu Manesar, has once again brought forth the reality of being Muslim and poor in New India.
A spate of lynchings has marred the region of Mewat (remember Pehlu Khan?) for some years now. Mewat region is home to the Meo people which is a predominantly Muslim peasant community. Ghatmeeka village itself is only 90 kilometres from India’s IT Hub, Gurugram. Despite this proximity to centres of wealth and power, Mewat (now called Nuh) is officially India’s most backward district on different indicators such as health, education, infrastructure, etc.
While the village is technically in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district (Mewat is a contiguous area that covers parts of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh), for all that matters to people and their livelihoods, Ghatmeeka mirrors the striking backwardness of all of Mewat: poor/absent roads, kutcha houses, a dearth of schools and primary healthcare facilities, and farmers with marginal holdings. So when we, as the delegation from All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and All India Agricultural Workers’ Union (AIAWU), visited Junaid and Nasir’s homes here, it was clear to us how thoroughly difficult it was going to be for their kin to carry on with their lives in Mewat. The delegation comprised AIKS general secretary Vijoo Krishnan, finance secretary P Krishnaprasad, vice President Inderjit Singh, AIAWU joint secretary Vikram Singh, Rajasthan Kisan Sabha joint secretary Sanjay Madhav, senior leader of CITU in Haryana Satbir Singh, Shubhojeet Dey from P Sundarayya Memorial Trust, Kale Khan sarpanch and Akhtar Hussain.
With the villagers huddling around us as we sat on two charpoys in the baithak of Junaid’s humble one-storeyed house of plain brick and mortar, we met his first cousin, Mohd Yousuf. Yousuf shared how deep the fear of Monu Manesar and his ilk runs through the village. “Forget about adults, even children are picked up by him and are only returned for a ransom of Rs 50-60,000,” he told us.
“Junaid’s parents are long dead. He was the sole earner in the family that includes 13 children, 6 of his own and the rest of his elder brother Zafar who is mentally-ill and is unable to work. For the last five years, he was running a grocery shop in the village. His family owns 10 biswas of land (half a bigha or one-twelfth of an acre) and they grow no surplus foodgrains which can be sold in the market,” Yousuf informed us.
Not ten steps from the house is Junaid’s kirana shop. Its closed shutter screams of his absence, an unbounded one as he will never return. “We are chased away from police stations; no one listens to us. Rajasthan police has still cooperated with us, but since the murders took place in Haryana, it is essential that the state police there act. But they are sitting on the matter even as the killers roam free,” Yousuf added.
After every lynching, despite its apparent regularity, the community finds itself astonished. They wonder why they are being targeted. Even by a stretch of imagination it will be hard to claim that the Meo Muslims here hold any spite for Hindus. Indeed, the sarpanch of the village is a Hindu - Avtar Singh - and he has been elected four consecutive times by the majority Muslim population here. This has been so despite a number of Muslim candidates in the fray. The Bajrang Dal, of which Monu Manesar is a proud member, operates on the false pretext of cow smuggling as there is no genuine enmity between Hindus and Muslims here. The pretext is highly effective as Meos are traditionally skilled dairy farmers and almost every household owns cattle. So it's easy for the mob to attack Meos transporting their cattle, even if they might just be taking the bovine to the veterinarian for treatment.
Down the broken alleys, near the fields where the village grows its Rabi wheat crop, we found Nasir’s house - a tiny room which he shared with his wife Parmina - in a compound that also houses his two elder brothers and their families. The brothers spoke in a low-voice, still reeling through the shock of losing their sibling, and narrated the events of February 15-16. It was an unremarkable day. Nasir, who was a truck driver by profession, borrowed a neighbour's Bolero pickup to drive his friend Junaid to Haryana where the latter was to meet the family of a prospective bride. Recall that Junaid has an elder brother, Zafar, who was mentally disabled; it was for his son that Junaid left for Haryana, calling a favour from his friend Nasir. On their way back, they were intercepted allegedly by Monu Manesar’s vigilante gang, abducted, beaten till they were grievously injured and then taken to FirozepurJhirka police station. Here, betraying all official procedures and certainly breaking the moral compass, Haryana police refused to shelter Junaid and Nasir. The gang then proceeded to take the duo to Bhiwani, locked them up in the Bolero, and burnt the vehicle to ashes.
This tragedy indeed appears like the theatre of the absurd: Junaid and Nasir were kidnapped on the suspicion of smuggling cows even though they were actually returning from a social visit. Neither Junaid nor Nasir happen to even rear cows for income. One wonders where the holy cow enters the picture? The possible answer is, however, and this was highlighted to us by Meos both inside and outside the village, that Monu Manesar is running an organised crime operation, where he first creates a self-image of being the saviour of cows through his widely popular YouTube channel, and with the support and impunity thus gained, he forcefully takes cattle away from Meos, only to smuggle them himself, either to the market for sale or to butchers! Junaid and Nasir’s brutal murder was part of his propaganda campaign to spread fear amongst Meo dairy farmers. Only that this time national media gave its long due attention to the matter, resulting in him becoming “untraceable”, as Haryana’s rather capable police would like to call it.
AIKS handed over a cheque of Rs 1 lakh each to Sajida and Parmina, wives of Junaid and Nasir as a preliminary support to the two families. No compensation had yet been given to the families either from the Congress-led Rajasthan government or the BJP-led Haryana government. AIKS had visited earlier when Pehlu Khan was lynched and also when Rakbar Khan as well as Ummar Khan were killed. Ummar Khan also belonged to the same village as Junaid and Nasir. His young son Vikram Khan recognised us, came forward and expressed the helplessness faced by the villagers.
The Meos feel cornered, not just by local right-wing vigilantes, but also by public perception in general. Much has been written derisively about the “lawlessness” of Mewat, how every youth in the district owns an illegal gun, and so on. The media has facilitated these stereotypes with its own poisonous rhetoric. So when our delegation asked the villagers to challenge such attacks and mobilise for a mahapanchayat for communal peace, they responded positively but asked AIKS and AIAWU to send their national leadership to participate in the programme. This would bring them confidence, the locals said. As we have consistently stood by the Meo community, we extended our full support once again.
