2020 Delhi riots
The 2020 Delhi riots, or North East Delhi riots, were multiple waves of bloodshed, property destruction, and rioting in North East Delhi, India, beginning on 23 February 2020 and brought about chiefly by Hindu mobs attacking Muslims. Of the 53 people killed, two-thirds were Muslims who were shot, slashed with repeated blows, or set on fire. The dead also included over a dozen Hindus, who were shot or assaulted. Over a week after the violence had ended, hundreds of wounded were languishing in inadequately staffed medical facilities and corpses were being found in open drains. By mid-March many Muslims had remained missing.
Muslims were marked as targets for violence. In order to have their religion ascertained, Muslim males—who unlike Hindus are commonly circumcised—were at times forced to remove their lower garments before being brutalised. Among the injuries recorded in one hospital were lacerated genitals. The properties destroyed were disproportionately Muslim-owned and included four mosques, which were set ablaze by rioters. By the end of February, many Muslims had left these neighbourhoods. Even in areas of Delhi untouched by the violence, some Muslims had left for their ancestral villages, fearful for their personal safety in India's capital.
The riots had their origin in Jaffrabad, in North East Delhi, where a sit-in by women against India's Citizenship Act, 2019 had been in progress on a stretch of the Seelampur–Jaffrabad–Maujpur road, blocking it. On 23 February 2020, a leader of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, Kapil Mishra, called for Delhi Police to clear the roads, failing which he threatened to "hit the streets". After Mishra's ultimatum, violence erupted. Initially, Hindu and Muslim attacks were equally lethal. Most deaths were attributed to gunfire. By 25 February 2020, the balance had shifted. Rioters wearing helmets and carrying sticks, stones, swords or pistols, and the saffron flags of Hindu nationalism entered Muslim neighbourhoods, as the police stood by. Chants were heard of "Jai Shri Ram", a religious slogan favoured by prime minister Narendra Modi's party. In the neighbourhood of Shiv Vihar, Hindu rioters attacked Muslim houses and businesses for three days, often firebombing them with cooking gas cylinders and gutting them without resistance or intervention from the police. In some instances, Muslims countered perceived threats by returning the violence; on the 25th a Muslim mob approached a Hindu neighbourhood throwing stones and Molotov cocktails and firing guns. During this time, stories were also told of Sikh and Hindu families coming to the aid of besieged Muslims; in some neighbourhoods, the religious communities cooperated in protecting themselves from violence.
The Indian government swiftly characterised the violence as spontaneous. The Delhi Police, which is directly overseen by India's central government, moved into the area in strength on 26 February after the Delhi High Court had ordered it to help remove injured victims to hospitals. India's national security advisor, Ajit Doval, visited the area; the prime minister, Narendra Modi, made an appeal for peace on Twitter. The Delhi police were accused by the affected citizens, eyewitnesses, human rights organizations and Muslim leaders around the world of falling short in protecting Muslims. Videos showed police acting in a coordinated manner against Muslims, on occasion purposefully helping Hindu gangs. Witnesses said some police officers joined the attacks on Muslims.
After the violence had abated in the thickly-settled mixed Hindu-Muslim neighbourhoods of North East Delhi, some Hindu organisations continued to parade alleged Hindu victims of Muslim violence in an attempt to reshape the accounting of events and to further inflame hostility towards Muslims. About 1,000 Muslims sought shelter in a relief camp on the fringes of Delhi. Gangs of Hindus appeared in several Muslim neighbourhoods in the days preceding the Hindu festival of Holi, celebrated in 2020 on 9 March, to scare Muslims into abandoning their homes. In the midst of prevailing anti-Muslim attitudes, senior lawyers in Delhi were not accepting cases on behalf of the riot victims. Among Hindus and Muslims who continued to live in their neighbourhoods, the violence created potentially long-living divisions. For at least two weeks after the rioting, they avoided each other during the day and at night blocked their lanes with barriers.
Background
Protests began across India in December 2019 in response to the passage of the Citizenship Act, which allows fast-tracked naturalisation for immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan belonging to six religions vis-à-vis Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Jainism and Buddhism but not Islam. The Act has been seen as discriminatory to Muslims and threatening to their existence in India when combined with the anticipated National Register of Citizens.Several anti-CAA protests were held in New Delhi. Some protesters burned vehicles and pelted stones at security forces. In Shaheen Bagh, protesters blocked roads, which led to a traffic jam.
The Delhi Legislative Assembly election was held on 8 February 2020, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party was defeated by the Aam Aadmi Party ; widespread usage of incendiary slogans by BJP equating the protesters to anti-national elements and asking for them to be shot were reported. Delhi BJP chief, Manoj Tiwari, has since attributed hate speech by fellow party-candidate Kapil Mishra as a cause of the BJP defeat.
On 22 February, around 500 to 1,000 protesters, including women, began a sit-in protest near the Jaffrabad metro station. The protest blocked a stretch of Seelampur–Jaffrabad–Maujpur road, as well as the entry and exit to the metro station. According to the protesters, the sit-in was in solidarity with the Bharat Bandh called by the Bhim Army, which was scheduled to begin on 23 February. Police and paramilitary personnel were deployed at the site.
Timeline
23 February and incitement
On 23 February between 3.30p.m. and 4p.m., BJP leader Kapil Mishra and his supporters reached a protest site at Maujpur Chowk "to give an answer to Jaffrabad ". Mishra then spoke out in a rally against the CAA protesters and threatened to take matters into his own hands if the police failed to disperse the protesters from the Jaffrabad and Chand Bagh areas in three days' time. This has been widely reported to be the major inciting factor; however, Mishra rejects the characterisation that he did anything wrong.At approximately 4p.m., protesters were reported to have hurled stones at the pro-CAA gathering at Maujpur Chowk and near a temple. Between 9 and 11p.m., clashes broke out between the anti-CAA and pro-CAA demonstrators in Karawal Nagar, Maujpur Chowk, Babarpur and Chand Bagh. Vehicles were gutted and shops were destroyed. The police used baton charges and tear gas to disperse the crowd. Seven hundred emergency calls were made to the police control room that day.
24 February
On the morning of 24 February, pro-CAA groups arrived at an anti-CAA protest site at Jaffrabad and refused to leave until the anti-CAA protesters left the area. At around 12:30p.m., protesters wearing masks and waving swords clashed with the police force. By afternoon, violent clashes broke out in several areas of North East Delhi, including in the Gokulpuri and Kardampuri areas. There was heavy stone pelting and vandalism of property. The police used tear gas and lathi charge against the protesters in the Chand Bagh area, but the protesters retaliated by throwing stones at the police. A head constable, Ratan Lal, died of a bullet injury in this clash.In Bhajanpura, in afternoon a group numbering around 2000 attacked a petrol pump, chanting slogans of and carrying petrol bombs, sticks and weapons. They attacked the owner and employees of the petrol pump with sticks, burning vehicles and petrol tanks after looting available cash.
Violence was also reported from the areas of Seelampur, Jaffrabad, Maujpur, Kardampuri, Babarpur, Gokulpuri and Shivpuri. Section 144 was imposed in all the affected areas but to little effect. In Jaffrabad, a man, allegedly linked with the anti-CAA side, opened fire at the police, before being arrested days later in Uttar Pradesh.
In Shiv Vihar, in the afternoon, several shops and homes owned by Hindus were torched by a Muslim mob. Later, mutilated bodies of workers were recovered from the site. A massive parking lot with 170 cars was burned by a mob. In the evening around 8:30p.m., a tyre market was set on fire with the screaming of being heard. Later that night, at around 10:30p.m., a mob beat a Hindu man and his elderly father travelling on a scooter with sticks, stones and swords while screaming "Allahu akbar". The man died on the spot. On that day, five people died including a police constable and four civilians.
3,500 emergency calls were made to the police control room that day. The Delhi Fire Service stated that it had attended 45 calls from areas in northeast Delhi and three firemen were injured, on 24 February. While attending calls, a fire engine was attacked with stones, while another fire engine was set on fire by rioters.
25 February
On 25 February, stone pelting was reported from Maujpur, Brahampuri and other neighbouring areas. Rapid Action Force were deployed in the worst affected areas. It was a full-blown riot with intense religious sloganeering and violence from both sides.In Ashok Nagar, a mosque was vandalized and a Hanuman flag was placed on one of the minarets of the mosque. It was also reported that the prayer mats of the mosque were burnt and pages torn from the Quran were strewn outside the mosque. A mob shouting the slogans and marched around the mosque before setting it on fire and looting adjacent shops and houses. According to local residents, the attackers did not belong to the area. After the first wave of violence by rioters, the police evacuated Muslim residents and took them to the police station. While the residents were away, a second mosque in Ashok Nagar and a third in Brijpuri were also torched along with a three-storey house and eight shops in the vicinity; the rioters could not be identified. Another mosque was vandalised in Gokulpuri.
At 3p.m. in Durgapuri, Hindu and Muslim mobs clashed, pelting stones and shooting at each other. The rioters sported tilaka on their foreheads, and shouted religious slogans whilst shops and vehicles belonging exclusively to Muslims were torched. Police were not present initially in the area and arrived almost an hour later.
At Gamri extension, a Hindu mob attacked a lane, and an 85-year-old woman was burnt to death when her house was set on fire. In Karawal Nagar, acid was thrown by protesters on the paramilitary personnel, who were deployed in the area to maintain law and order. A Muslim man was shot and burnt to death by a mob in Shiv Vihar, with cries of being heard. People wielding sticks and iron rods were reported to be roaming streets in the areas of Bhajanpura, Chand Bagh and Karawal Nagar localities.
By 9:30p.m., it was reported that 13 people died due to violence. Among the injured, more than 70 people suffered gunshot injuries. At 10p.m., shoot at sight orders were given to police in the riot-affected area.
The dead body of a trainee driver in the Intelligence Bureau at Chanakyapuri, was found in a drain in Jaffrabad, a day after he went missing. The circumstances leading to his death are under investigation, with a lot of confusion regarding them. According to a post-mortem report, he was repeatedly stabbed, leading to his death. Tahir Hussain, who was an AAP councillor, was arrested for allegedly murdering the trainee driver.
7,500 emergency calls were made to the police control room throughout the day, the highest of the week.