WASHINGTON: The Indian-American Muslim Council condemned what it said the vicious hate-motivated killing of four people – three Muslim passengers and one railway police official – aboard the Jaipur-Mumbai Central Superfast Express yesterday.
In a video recorded following the incident, the murderer, a railway policeman named Chetan Singh, praised India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh state’s Hindu supremacist Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath.
“If you want to live and vote in Hindustan [India], I am telling you, it’s only Modi and Yogi,” said Singh in the video, echoing Hindu supremacist rhetoric deployed in other anti-Muslim attacks.
“The murderer, Chetan Singh, could not have made himself more clear. He declared India a Hindu nation and that if you want to live in India you must support the Hindu supremacist politicians Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath. This is a politically inspired hate crime and a terrorist attack,” said IAMC Executive Director Rasheed Ahmed.
“The price of Narendra Modi’s anti-Muslim agenda and Yogi Adityanath’s hateful rhetoric is Muslim lives. Not a week goes by in India without someone taking inspiration from Hindu supremacist ideology and claiming innocent Muslim lives.”
Yogi Adityanath is infamous for inciting hate against Muslims and demolishing thousands of Muslim homes, a policy that has earned him the moniker of “Bulldozer Baba” among his followers.
Narendra Modi was banned from the United States for nearly a decade for ordering police not to intervene as thousands of predominantly Muslim Indians were slaughtered by Hindu supremacist groups.
Singh’s shocking attack is a particularly acute example of the anti-Muslim violence sweeping India, including in the state of Haryana, where Hindu supremacist mobs today killed 19-year-old deputy Imam Maulana Saad and razed the Anjuman Jama mosque, where he led prayers. Hindu supremacist mobs continue to roam the streets in Haryana city Gurugram, vandalizing Muslim-owned businesses.
The killing of Saad follows violent clashes which occurred a day earlier in nearby Nuh, when Hindu militant groups Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad paraded through the Muslim-majority district. Violence broke out after Monu Manesar, a Bajrang Dal member wanted by authorities for leading the brutal mob lynching of two Muslim men earlier this year, posted that he planned on joining the procession.
Two police officers were killed in the ensuing violence, which included the burning of several cars, vandalism of Muslim-owned businesses, and the stoning of government officers.
“The mass outbreaks of communal violence in Nuh and Gurugram are a product of the radicalization of sectarian politics pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his fellow Hindu supremacist politicians,” said IAMC President Mohammed Jawad. “By endorsing and collaborating with Modi, American officials are helping to legitimize the ideas fueling yesterday’s violence.”
Indian Americans called on the U.S. State Department to designate India a Country of Particular Concern and for Indian officials to do everything in their power to de-escalate the tensions and contain the violence orchestrated by Hindu supremacist paramilitary organizations.
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