ASIA/INDIA - Christians and civil society groups alongside the Muslim community in Gujarat

Ahmedabad (Agenzia Fides) - More than 100 Christians and members of various civil society groups in the state of Gujarat, in western India, have urged the Prime Minister of the State to act against the "false propaganda" directed at the community muslim. The letter was addressed to Bhupendra Rajnikant Patel, the current Prime Minister of Gujarat and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
"We, a group of citizens from different parts of Gujarat, would like to draw your attention to the hateful messages on social media and public calls for violence against the Muslim community, following the unfortunate and reprehensible killing of Kishan Bharwad by some criminal elements", reads the letter dated February 3.
On January 25, two men on bicycles killed Kishan Bharwad, 27, in the Dhandhuka area of Ahmedabad district, capital of the Indian state of Gujarat. According to initial reports, Bharwad was killed for a Facebook post that allegedly hurt religious feelings. Gujarat police arrested two Muslim men - Shabbir (25) and Imtiaz (27) - in connection with the murder of Kishan Bharwad. In addition to the two killers, the Gujarat police also arrested a Muslim cleric, Maulvi Ayyub, from Ahmedabad. Ayyub is accused of supplying weapons to Shabbir and Intiaz. One of the signatories of the Letter to the Government is Father Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit, human rights promoter and writer, who lives in Gujarat. According to Prakash, the police acted quickly and effectively and promoted timely investigations: "The police's action is correct, especially now that the culprits have been arrested and the Counter-Terrorism Squad has also been alerted", he says.
On the other hand, the Letter notes: "Hate messages and public calls for violence against a specific community, currently against the Muslim community, are harmful and dangerous and have the potential to incite further mass violence; The State must pursue and detain these criminal elements to ensure that law and order prevail".
It should be noted that following the murder of the young man in Dhandhuka, a mob of protesters in Dhandhuka and Rajkot attacked the police and also caused damage to public property. "This shows how unstable the situation is and thus underlines the need for concerted action by the police and civil authorities, to ensure that the lives, property and livelihoods of the Muslim community across Gujarat do not run any kind of danger ", says with concern Fr. Prakash.
"In the interest of Gujarat, we demand that the following steps be taken immediately: direct the police to track down, prosecute and arrest criminal elements who spread hate messages against the Muslim community on social media", adds Akhilesh Dave, a social worker, who calls for "preventive police action" aimed at identifying "sensitive areas" and ensuring the protection of Muslim settlements, so that the situation in the state does not degenerate into open intercommunal violence, such as the one that shocked the state of Gujarat in 2002, wounded by violence between Hindus and Muslims. (SD-PA) (Agenzia Fides, 4/2/2021)

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religious minorities

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islam

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violence

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