THE communal poison regularly injected into the body politic by the Sangh Parivar and its growing numbers of supporters among common people and the administration has been responsible for numerous attacks on Muslims.  Most tragically, recent incidents have shown that children and infants are now being made the targets of these attacks.

In Malvan, a small town in Sindhdurg district of Maharashtra, a young Muslim boy of 15 was apprehended by the police, his parents arrested and their small scrap shop was bulldozed by the municipal corporation on February 25.  All this was done on the basis of an FIR filed in the police station by an individual belonging to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad who stated that, when he was passing the boy’s house, he heard him shouting ‘pro Pakistan’ slogans while he was watching the cricket match between India and Pakistan.  Despite the far-fetched nature of the complaint and without conducting any kind of enquiry, the police arrived at the boy’s house and dragged the terrified and traumatised child away.  Since he was a minor, he was sent to an observation home while his parents were sent to jail.  The charges against them under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion),197 (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) and 3 (5) (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), were those that are now being used against members of the minority community with shameful regularity while, of course, Hindu hatemongers who are actually guilty of these crimes get away scot free.

The next day, a motor cycle procession was taken out by a few people who demanded that the family that belongs to Uttar Pradesh be thrown out of the area.  Their scrap shop was bulldozed on the same day.

While the parents were given bail and the boy handed over to his uncle, their sufferings have not ended.  They have they been deprived of their livelihood.  Their child is traumatised and terrorised and refuses to speak.  The local BJP MLA, Nilesh Rane is doing all that he can to make political capital of the issue by alleging that the boy’s father is an extremely suspicious person, probably a jihadi and that he will do everything in his power to throw him out of the district.

Apart from the disturbing fact that now young children are being made the victims of vicious communal attacks the complicity of the police that arrested him in an inhuman and legally questionable manner and of the municipal authorities that bulldozed his father’s shop in contravention of the recent ruling of the Supreme Court against the use of bulldozers without legal sanction, is dangerous.

When the municipal authorities were questioned by journalists about their action, they tried to take the plea that the shop was ‘illegal’ and that the police had asked them to immediately demolish it.  On the other hand, the police said that they were ‘investigating’ as to why the demolition took place.  When they were asked what they did to protect the shop, they said that because of the presence of a mob of locals, they could not.  Eye witnesses have said that there were actually very few people present both in the motorcycle rally and as spectators of the demolition.  This underlines the fact that while there may not be large numbers of participants in a communal attack, the polarisation that such an attack creates brings many others into the Hindutva fold.

An even more horrific incident followed close on the heels of Malvan.  On March 2, the Rajasthan police raided the home of Imran in Alwar district, late at night.  There were no policewomen present.  Imran’s wife, Razida, was sleeping with her two month old child, Alishda.  The police dragged Razida and her child off the bed and, as a result, the child fell down.  Razida tried to pick her up but she was pushed out of their hut and, she has alleged, policemen crushed her infant child’s head under their boots and killed her.

The family tried to lodge a complaint at the police station but were not given a hearing.  The next day, many villagers belonging to both communities, held a protest in front of the SP’s office and an FIR was filed.  According to the police, three policemen have been ‘sent to the lines’ as a punishment pending enquiry.  The fact that communal hatred has made police personnel commit a heinous crime of this nature against an innocent infant in arms is a dangerous portent.

In a situation in which administrative officials are willing to flout Supreme Court orders and police personnel commit crimes against children and infants, the need for public outrage against and effective opposition to the polarising politics of the Sangh Parivar are, more than ever, the need of the hour.