He was stoned in a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) march, supposedly putting up provocative slogans while passing through Begum Bagh Here, that led the Ujjain district administration to the Muslim-dominated town on December 26. Abdul Rafeeq’s home was razed in the action that followed. Since then, her 19-year-old family has been sheltered in a room in their home by her neighbor Meera Bai, who agrees with Rafeeq that there was no reason for the police to tear down their two-story home.
A daily gamble, who built the house for the past 35 years with a patta assigned to him by the government, Rafeeq says police were looking for two women, identified as Heena and Yasmeen, allegedly caught on video throwing stones at BJYM’s morcha. from Meera’s Roof on December 25. When they realized that Meera was Hindu, Rafeeq says, they headed to his home, which adjoins hers, without giving his wife Nafeesa and two daughters-in-law time to recover anything. His family, including 10 children, were left destitute in a matter of 30 minutes.
Meera accepts that Heena, her tenant, was caught throwing rocks, and says that she “ran away” that same night. When authorities arrived the next day, he says, he begged them not to raze his house, adding: “Mera ghar se nikle toh udhar ghus gaye (They left my house just to enter that one) ”. Yasmeen, a mother of two who also works as a daily gambler, has been arrested and charged with attempted murder. Seventeen others have been booked, ten of them under the strict NSA.
While three FIRs have been registered, by Abdul Shakir, a Begum Bagh resident, by BJYM’s Navdeep Singh Raghuvanshi, and by a trust from the nearby Bharat Mata Temple, police say they only have evidence against Begum Bagh residents so far. .
According to the district collector Asheesh Singh, the demolition campaign was designed to financially harm “criminals who resort to such acts of stoning.” He added that while Heena and Yasmeen were throwing stones from Meera’s terrace, Yasmeen lived in Rafeeq’s house.
When asked why no action had been taken on the complaint against BJYM, the District Collector said: “Residents claimed that clashes broke out when those in the demonstration launched abuses and chanted offensive slogans, but could not reach to any concrete evidence. We are ready to take action if we are told of any video to prove it. “
In a statement to the media following demands for an independent investigation into what happened in Ujjain, Interior Minister Narottam Mishra said:Jahan se patthar aayenge, wahin se toh nikaale jaayenge (They will have to take them from where the stones came from) ”.
Recently, several incidents of violence have been reported in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh following demonstrations by right-wing Hindu groups. In Mandsaur, the police registered a FIR against five people, who allegedly tried to tear down a mosque in the village of Dorana, while they were holding a demonstration to collect donations for the construction of the Ram temple. On Tuesday, clashes were reported in Indore following a similar cash drive, and four people were searched by police.
At Begum Bagh in Ujjain, there is an eerie silence, with the police spread out everywhere.
Says Nafeesa: “I pleaded with the two policewomen that we were not involved in the stoning, but they just turned to me and said, ‘If you had been involved, you would have been behind bars,’ and they continued the demolition.” Rafeeq says they had been collecting items for his granddaughter’s wedding and found some of her belongings later floating in the nearby gutter.
Yasmeen’s daughters, meanwhile, are running to get their mother’s bail. Reshma, eldest daughter, says: “My mother was not the one who threw stones. If she had been involved, she might as well have escaped. We just want to see that she’s safe and sound once. “
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