'At least two activists from Delhi’s Khureji Khas area, who were arrested from an anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest site on Wednesday afternoon, have been physically tortured in judicial custody, according to their family members. They have also been booked for rioting, attempting to murder a police official, and possessing and using firearms, which their families and other protesters claim are false and unsubstantiated charges.
'On a chilly February night in Chennai, Seetha* (40) and Murugan* (48), settle down with two small packets of food on the footpath opposite Elliot's Beach in the city’s Besant Nagar area. As the popular cafés and trendy bars down the road shut shop for the day, the duo lay their blankets out under the sharp glow of the white light from the street lamps. While Murugan has a frayed towel tied around his head to keep warm, Seetha tightly wraps the pallu of her cotton saree around herself.
'The Mustafabad area in north east Delhi also saw violence on Tuesday evening as a Hindutva mob attacked the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest site, injuring several people including children. According to residents, a mob of around 50 men gathered in the area and began to pelt stones. At least two mosques in the area have been vandalised and attacked with stones, by the same mob. Residents told The Wire that men armed with rods and pistols gathered outside the mosques in the area and attacked them. At the time, several children were inside the mosque and were attacked.
'The plea was for directions to ensure safe passage of seriously wounded victims from Al Hind Hospital in Mustafabad, a small hospital lacking facilities, to GTB Hospital in Dilshad Garden. Advocate Suroor Mander explained the dire circumstances of victims trapped in Al Hind Hospital to Justice Muralidhar over phone. Advocate Suroor also arranged for the phone conversation between Dr Anwar at Al Hind Hospital with the bench via speaker mode.
'...Amid this, a group of around 50 people surrounded me and the clamour to check my phone grew because they were convinced I had clicked photos of the violence. They thumbed through my recent pictures and found no photo or video of the unrest. But they were not taken in and deleted all my photos and videos before returning the phone to me. “Why have you come here?” “Are you from JNU?”. These questions were asked before the group asked me to leave if I cared for my life.This was a precursor to what I was about to encounter...'
'...“They beat me till they broke me. I begged them and they beat me some more, viciously. They made communally charged slurs and took (BJP leader) Kapil Mishra’s name. I don’t remember much. I just hoped my children were safe. I can’t bear to look at my photograph, my legs shiver with pain,” Zubair told The Indian Express. Zubair had left his house on Monday morning to attend a local dua ka namaaz and was caught by protesters who, as per eyewitnesses, kept assaulting him with wooden sticks and iron rods till he lost consciousness.
'Videos surfaced on social media on Tuesday evening of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Abhay Verma making rounds of Laxmi Nagar market in his constituency with at least 150 supporters, chanting provocative slogans. Local shopkeepers in Laxmi Nagar confirmed that Verrma had visited the area. The video was tweeted by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s Rajya Sabha Member Sanjay Singh. Verma also happens to be the Delhi BJP vice-president, who defeated AAP’s Nitin Tyagi in the February 8 Assembly elections by a razor-thin margin of 880 votes.
'At around noon on February 25, when Mohammed Saeed Salmani was out buying milk for his family, he received a call from his younger son. An armed mob of around 100 people had entered their lane in Gamri extension, around 1.5 km from Khajuri Khas in Delhi, and were setting shops and houses on fire. Their four-storey house, too, had been torched, and his family had sought refuge on the roof.
'...After walking for about 200 meters, I saw a huge group of men standing in a corner and listening to a pundit, dressed in saffron clothes. When I got close, I clearly heard him say, "Musalmano ko jaisey hi dekho waisey hi maaro, upar se order aa gaye hain,” after which he left in a hurry. Curious and shocked, I asked one of the men who he was. "Paas ki mandir ke pundit hain ye, aap kaun hain?" "I live here inside these lanes," I said. "Let us drop you inside," they said. After telling them that I will manage on my own, I escaped and started walking inside one of the lanes of Maujpur.
'While the national capital continues to burn in the pyre of communalism, we wouldn't know much about it if it weren't for the journalists, ground reporters who have been risking their lives to bring the horrific details on the ground to us... It is an extremely frustrating day for journalists in Delhi – we want to respond to distress calls coming from Muslim neighbourhoods, we want to document the violence, but going into these areas is risky because mobs are attacking reporters...
