Muslims flee Indian business hub after religious clashes, attacks
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[August 10, 2023]
By Rupam Jain and Sakshi Dayal
GURUGRAM, India (Reuters) - Over 3,000 poor Muslims have fled a business
hub outside New Delhi this month, fearing for their lives after
Hindu-Muslim clashes and sporadic attacks targeting them, residents,
police and a community group said.
Shops and shacks owned or run by Muslims and their houses in two large
slum areas were padlocked when Reuters visited them more than a week
after seven people were killed in clashes in Nuh and Gurugram districts
in Haryana state, adjoining the Indian capital.
The violence began on July 31 after a Hindu religious procession,
organized by groups ideologically aligned with the ruling Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was targeted and a mosque
attacked in retaliation. Police quelled the unrest in 48 hours.
But minor attacks targeting Muslims have continued for days, scaring
families who had moved to the new urban centre of Gurugram - where 250
of the Fortune 500 companies have offices - in search of a livelihood.
Stone-throwing, arson and vandalization of two small Muslim shrines in
the slum districts forced hundreds of Muslim families to abandon their
single-room houses and seek shelter at a train station before heading
out, witnesses said.
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"Many of us spent the entire night on a railway platform because it was
much safer there," Raufullah Javed, a tailor who fled to his home
village in the eastern state of Bihar, told Reuters by phone.
The Gurugram president of Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind (Council of Indian Muslim
Theologians) Mufti Mohammed Salim estimated that more than 3,000 Muslims
had left the district after the violence.
Four Muslim shopkeepers who also fled to their villages in eastern India
said by phone that members of hardline Hindu groups had questioned them
about their businesses and families.
"Some Hindu men came in a large group and started asking questions such
as how much money I earn," said Shahid Sheikh, a barber who fled from
Tigra village, home to over 1,200 Muslim families.
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![](../images/081023PIX/news_v28.jpg)
A police officer sits outside a
mosque that was attacked by a mob following clashes between Hindus
and Muslims that erupted on Monday, in Gurugram, on the outskirts of
New Delhi, India, August 2, 2023. REUTERS/Rupam Jain/File Photo
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"Many Muslims decided it's best to leave for a while," said Sheikh,
adding that some Hindu owners of shops rented out to Muslims wanted
them to vacate.
Tensions between India's majority Hindus and minority Muslims have
risen over issues such as the eating of beef and inter-faith
marriages with Muslims saying they have been increasingly targeted
by Hindu activists since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP
government took power in 2014.
BJP leaders say clashes between the two communities have broken out
in the past as well and have been less frequent since they came to
power.
The trouble in Gurugram, a city of over 1.5 million people formerly
known as Gurgaon, has exposed multinationals such as Google,
American Express, Dell, Samsung, Ernst & Young and Deloitte based
there to risks of violence and disruption.
Haryana police said they had arrested over 200 men from both
communities in connection with the violence and some Muslims who had
fled had begun to trickle back.
Anil Vij, the interior minister of Haryana's BJP government, said he
had received reports of some Muslims leaving but the situation is
completely under control now.
"No one is asking them to leave and we are providing full security
in all communally sensitive areas," he told Reuters.
(Reporting by Rupam Jain and Sakshi Dayal; Editing by YP Rajesh and
Angus MacSwan)
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