After six people were killed in sectarian violence, most mosques in a major commercial district on the outskirts of India’s capital were closed for Friday prayers.
Gurugram, a satellite city of New Delhi and an important commercial center where Nokia, Samsung, and other multinationals have Indian headquarters, saw a large deployment of police outside various mosques.
After crowds attacked a Hindu religious procession with rocks and set cars on fire in the adjoining Muslim neighborhood of Nuh on Monday, tensions have remained high ever since.
Several stores and small restaurants were vandalized or set on fire by rioters chanting Hindu religious slogans in Gurugram early on Tuesday, while an armed mob assaulted a mosque in an apparent act of vengeance, murdering a cleric.
Since Tuesday night, no serious acts of violence have been reported.
India’s communal riots are a must-read.
Friday afternoon prayers are the most significant of the week for Muslims, thus some Gurugram mosques did allow small people to gather for them.
However, police had firmly closed the entrances to all five of the city’s most prominent Muslim places of worship when AFP checked on them.
Police stated that there was no official directive to close mosques, but that local Muslim leaders had asked followers to pray at home due to the tense situation.
Police are “just making sure that the security arrangements are proper,” senior police officer Varun Kumar Dahiya told reporters.
Gurugram is home to over 500,000 Muslims and a protracted conflict over religious freedom.
Following citizen protests, city officials have halted plans for new mosques.
In response, Muslim communities have been hosting outdoor prayer services, which have been picketed by extremist Hindu groups.
Violence between India’s Hindu majority and its 200 million Muslim minority has erupted frequently since Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office in 2014.
Muslims have been targeted for discrimination since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power, according to critics.
In 2020, 53 persons were killed in religious rioting in New Delhi.
In 2002, when Modi was chief minister, at least one thousand people were killed in Gujarat. They were predominantly Muslim.
After the British network aired a program on Modi’s behavior during the riots in February, tax inspectors searched the BBC’s India office.
In 2012, it was reported that the investigation of Modi ordered by India’s highest court had found no evidence of misconduct on his part.
