THE attack on the minority community in Atali village of Haryana’s Faridabad district on May 25 was the result of a well-planned conspiracy by hardcore Hindutva forces. Preparations for the attack had been going on for many days in the area and people were mobilised from adjoining villages through spreading rumour. From the chain of events, it is clear that the attack was carried out with political and administrative patronage. A CPI(M) central team, comprising Rajya Sabha MP Tapan Sen, Haryana state committee secretary Surender Singh, CITU state secretary Virendra Malik and SFI leader Manoj Kumar, visited Atali village on June 1 to obtain first-hand account of the situation and take stock of the losses and damages incurred by the Muslim community. After visiting the village, the team members met the affected people at City Police Station in Ballabhgarh where they have taken refuge since May 25. The delegation also met senior officials including the Commissioner of Police, the Deputy Commissioner and the SDM. The team expressed displeasure over the attack and the way the administration was dealing with the situation. It demanded that the culprits named in the FIR be arrested immediately, fair compensation paid for the damaged property, repair of the houses taken up immediately, and completion of the mosque construction ensured. This attack on Muslims took place on May 25 when they were busy constructing a mosque on a Waqf Board plot. The mosque under construction, more than 20 houses, 2-3 shops -- all belonging to members of the minority community -- were looted, vandalised and set on fire. In addition, 7-8 two-wheelers, 6-7 cars, two tractors and two canters were torched. In the attack, more than 20 people were injured, some of whom are still in hospitals. Children and women were also not spared. Police, who appeared at the crime scene late, rescued the people caught between burning houses and a violent gathering outside. After taking stock of the whole episode, the CPI(M) team concluded that this attack was a well-planned conspiracy by hardcore Hindutva forces, preparations for which had been going on for many days in the area. People had been mobilised from adjoining villages by spreading rumour. Kerosene, diesel, petrol, rods, swords, gas cylinders and stones were used in the attack. It is very much clear from the chain of events that the communal elements behind this attack had political and administrative patronage. This is clear from the fact that even after one week of this attack neither the chief minister nor any other minister of Haryana has uttered a single word about arresting the accused and providing justice to the victims. Local MP and Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment Krishan Pal Gurjar is too busy brokering a social compromise instead of ensuring that the guilty are brought to book. A team of the CPI(M) state committee, consisting of Satbir Singh, Faridabad district organising committee secretary K D Mishra, Virendra Malik, Nirantar Sharma, Vijay Jha and others, had also visited the village on May 28 to ascertain the facts and meet the affected people. Atali village is just 12 km from Ballabhgarh with an overall population of about 12,000 and has about 1,500 Muslims. The village had been declared as ‘Model Village’ by the erstwhile Congress government. It has no history of any communal tension, rather both the communities have lived peacefully participating in each other’s festivals wholeheartedly. The mosque under attack was being built on Waqf Board land where earlier a graveyard used to be. With the expansion of residential area of the village, there was a need to shift the graveyard. Thus a few years ago, the majority community of the village requested the minorities to shift the graveyard to another place which they accepted. The land for the new graveyard was made available by the Panchayat. After that the minority community started offering namaz at this site. About 30 houses of Muslims are in the vicinity of the mosque. In 2009, it was decided by the entire village that a mosque can be built here and the boundary wall was erected. At the foundation stone laying ceremony, both the communities participated. After the Panchayat Elections in 2010, some miscreants started raising questions about the mosque and even moved court. But it was decided by the Civil Court as well as the Revenue Court in March and April 2015 that the land belongs to Waqf Board. So again, the construction work of the mosque started in May 2015. But as politics of hate and minority bashing gained momentum, the vested interests started mobilising opinion against the construction of the mosque in the adjoining villages by spreading rumour and canards. They mobilised people in a temple in the village on May 25 and then attacked the mosque under construction and the adjoining houses of Muslims. Though policemen were posted in the village but their absence from the scene at the time of the attack is suspicious. Neither the administration nor the police took notice of the hate campaign launched in the area for weeks before the attack. When another posse of policemen was sent to the village, it was stopped from going to the site by a group of women for some time. Somehow it reached the spot and saved the people of minority community from the burning houses. The police shifted all the Muslim population to the City Police Station in Ballabhgarh where they are forced to camp in open. Women and children are also staying there where civil amenities are bare minimum. The CPI(M) central team has concluded that this attack is neither an isolated incident nor spontaneous. Rather it is part of a greater sinister design where minorities and Dalits are attacked and then the administration and the government instead of acting tough against the culprits start pressurising the victims in the name of social harmony to accept compromise and withdraw complaints. This was also demonstrated in the case of attack by RSS goons on Balmiki Colony in Sonipat and minorities in Jhajjar and Hisar. Such attacks owe its genesis to the continuous hate campaign launched by the RSS affiliates throughout the country under the political patronage of the central and state governments, headed by the BJP. After this incident also, RSS and BJP leaders including controversial MP Sadhvi Prachi visited the village to farther aggravate the tension for fulfilling their divisive motives. To bring peace and harmony in the area it is required that all the culprits named in FIRs are arrested immediately; the victims are compensated for all the losses and their houses be repaired; and a judicial inquiry is constituted to ascertain the partisan role played by the police and the administration. For a lasting peace in the area it is of utmost importance that all the Left, democratic and secular forces play an active role in isolating the politics of hate and division, being practised by the RSS and its affiliates.