A relationship of peace and harmony is how the residents of riot-hit Jahangirpuri described their bond with each other ever since they started living there more than two decades back.
“Things have never been hostile here among the Hindu and Muslim communities… even in the Muslim majority blocks, there are a handful of Hindu families living next door as well but we have always had an amicable relationship and even small scuffles don’t take place here,” said Aakib, a resident. While the area’s C-Block is mostly Muslim-dominated, the H and G-Blocks largely consist of Hindus.
Residents told The Hindu that Saturday’s clashes, when members of both the communities allegedly turned violent and resorted to stone pelting during a “Shobha Yatra’ being carried out to celebrate Hanuman Jayanti, seemed to be a “spur-of-the-moment” incident and an aberration from the years-long brotherhood both the communities have enjoyed.
Dropping her son outside the locality’s primary school, wife of one of the men arrested for the violence, who declined to be identified, said: “They (police) showed me a photo where my husband is seen standing with the crowd without any weapon… how does that make him a criminal? He sells fish for a living and I hope the police realises that he is innocent… I am a housewife and he was the sole breadwinner of the family”.
“The Hindus earn during Eid as we buy clothes from their shops… we have never thought of them (Hindus) as belonging to a different community…even though my husband has been arrested, I will never curse Hindus since we have always lived around them,” the woman added.
Shakina Begum, wife of the prime accused Mohd. Ansar, said her husband used to run a mobile repair shop in the area and was never involved in any criminal activities. “He went there only to resolve the matter and calm tempers, only due to this they (police) arrested him…he is innocent and has been wrongly framed,” Ms Shakina said.
Arif, 20, said that ever since he had lived there, Muslims have participated in all the Hindu festivals with vigour as have Hindus in Muslim festivals. “They (Hindus) take out Kanwar Yatra from our lanes every year and never has it bothered us…we give them Iftar meals after we break our fast and they give us their prasad,” he said.
He added that Jahangirpuri is “being given a bad name” by a select few who claim that communal scuffles are a “regular occurrence here”. “I don’t know what led to the clashes but both the communities respect each other’s rituals…it is testament from the fact that there is a temple right opposite the Jama Masjid…there are around as many temples as there are mosques here,” Arif said.
Zahiuddin Islam, 50, who reopened his cold-drink stall on Tuesday, said many construction workers, mostly Hindus, come to his shop to buy soft drinks adding that “this won’t change after the violence”.
“The incident was an exception and we will never have any feelings of animosity towards our Hindu brothers,” Islam said.
Around 500 metres from C-Block, Mamata, a resident of G-Block, said: “Some of my neighbours are Muslims too and I keep meeting them when I go out… don’t know what they (Muslims) feel towards us but we never had any issues with them in all these years… I would never brand them as criminals,” she said.
But Rajni, 40, another resident of G-Block, is not so sanguine and said there have been instances of verbal scuffles between the two communities in the past but it never turned this violent. “They (Muslims) created ruckus outside my house... they were the ones who started the violence,” she said.
Cautious return
Four days after the violence, however, there was a palpable fear among the Muslim residents of C-Block, most of whom claimed that police was “interrogating residents” and “picking up people in hordes”.
Refuting the claims, a senior officer said the police is investigating the case as per technical intelligence and video evidence and there has been no case of “harassment”.
The road opposite the Jama Masjid was heavily barricaded with paramilitary forces restricting entry of residents and patrolling the bylanes. While a handful of shops had opened near the mosque, many others remained shuttered amid the extensive police presence.
“I opened my shop today for the first time after the violence…there has been an obvious dip in customers after the clash and no one wants to come out of their houses,” a shopkeeper said.
