ISLAMABAD – Muslims of India have been feeling more vulnerable and insecurein the first four months of 2018 than ever before. Recent cases of failedjustice for crimes committed against them have disheartened the Muslimcommunity.

Even to outside observers, it is increasingly clear that Muslims are beingostracised and singled out and that state institutions are failing them inIndia.

In January, an eight-year-old girl wasabducted, sexually assaulted andmurderedlink>inthe Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir. The girl was from the BakarwalMuslim nomadic community. The eight men accused of participating in herabduction, assault and murder, on the other hand, are Hindus. The primaryaccused is a retired revenue official, while one of the others is a policeofficer.

When the girl’s body was discovered near a temple in the forest, almost aweek after her disappearance, Bakarwals demanded a special inquiry. Thecourt-monitored investigation revealedlink>thather abduction, rape and murder were purposeful and preplanned. It indicatedthat the attack on the girl aimed to scare the Bakarwal community away fromKathua. link>[image: Mariya Salim] link>

Last month, when the special team investigating the murder, headed by aPandit Hindu and a Muslim, went to file its charge sheet, it faced stiffresistancelink>fromsome members of the Jammu and Kashmir Bar Association.

They rallied against the investigative team and accused them of serving an”anti-Hindu agenda”. They claimed that they, too, wanted justice for thebrutalised girl, but said the investigative team was biased against Hindus.They said they wanted the probe to be conducted by the Central Bureau ofIndia (CBI) instead.

The lawyers also had other, clearly anti-Muslim, demands. Theydemandedlink> a changein the land use policy in the state which allows the nomads to retain theplots they had in their possession. In protests, supported by other Hindugroups and political parties active in the area, they also asked forRohingyalink>refugeesto be removed from the area. Both these demands had nothing to do with the”fairness” of the investigation into the girl’s murder. And together, theymade the protesters’ anti-Muslim agenda crystal clear.

Today, many people from the Hindu community, against all evidence, seems tobe convinced that this crime could not have been committed by Hindus.Instead, they allege that the child must have been killed by the Rohingyaor the Bakarwals themselves. They claim the entire case is aMuslim-Kashmiri conspiracy aiming to undermine the Hindus.

What started as a demand for a probe by a higher impartial agency has nowtaken a definitive anti-Muslim turn, with the local Hindu populationoutright denying the possibility of Hindus being involved in the crime. Butthese anti-Muslim sentiments are not only being promoted by Kathua lawyersor members of the public. India’s top institutions, and even the rulingparty, seem to be following a similar agenda.

After lawyers tried to stop the investigative team from filing the chargesheet against the men accused of the murder, the photos and videos of theagitation were shared widely in the media. Following a strong publicreaction to the incident, the Supreme Court instructed the Bar Council ofIndia (BCI) to send a fact-finding team to Kathua.

In their report to the top court, the BCI said the Kathua lawyers didn’tpreventlink>thespecial investigative team from filing the charge sheet and blamed themedia for “misreporting”. In fact, the team went beyond its mandate andeven said the “demand” for a CBI probe into the crime “seems to bejustified”.

Many members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have also openlyput their support behind the accused and criticised the investigation. TwoBJP ministers in the state of Jammu and Kashmiraddressed a rally in supportof the accusedlink>,which caused a public outcry across India and both ministers were forced toresign from their roles.

But after that all the BJP ministers resigned from the ministry. When newmembers from the party joined the government, it was pointed out that atleast one of them was present in the rally opposing the probe. The newdeputy chief minister insensitively saidlink>thatthe Kathua rape and murder was a minor incident and was being unnecessarilyhyped.

But beyond the Kathua case, there have been many others that give theimpression that India’s Muslims can no longer trust state institutions,including the judiciary.

In March, many Indian states were hit by violence during the Hindu festivalof Ramanavami. Attackslink>onMuslim localities in different parts of Bihar and West Bengal states havebeen reported. In many places, Muslim houses and business establishmentshave been attacked, burned and looted. Similar attacks have been going onfor the last four years, but the level and intensity of violence hasincreased manyfold in 2018. The administration and the law-and-orderauthorities, in most cases, failed to take action and allowed this tohappen.

Also in April, the accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case in whichnine people were killed, were let offlink>.All the accused belonged to organisations practising Hindutvalink> ideology.In April, an Indian court overturned the conviction of senior BJPparty member Maya Kodnani who was sentenced to 28 yearslink> injail for her part in the murder of 97 people in 2002 in the state ofGujarat. Her co-accused Bau Bajrangi also got relief in his sentence. Itwas clear that the prosecution was not interested in making a good caseagainst the accused. Kodnani’s acquittal has dismayed and angered theMuslim victims of the Gujarat riots, who had fought a long battle to securejustice.

This was a major case in which the investigative agencies had proved therole such organisations had played in the killing of Muslims. Lawyer RohiniSalian, who was the main prosecutor in this case, had openly accused theNational Investigation Agency (NIA) of pressurising her to “go softlink>”on the accused. In a recent interview, she repeated her charge.

Before this, the Uttar Pradesh government initiated the processlink> ofwithdrawing 131 cases – all naming Hindus as the accused – including 13murder and 11 attempted murder cases – relating to the 2013 mass violenceagainst Muslims in the cities Muzaffarnagar and Shamli.

In late April, six Hindu men were arrestedlink>inGurugram, in the state of Delhi, after photos and videos of them disruptinga Muslim Friday mass prayer went viral on social media. But they wereswiftly let out on bail.

Even more worryingly, around 500 people claiming allegiance tovarious Hindutva outfits close to the ruling BJP came out in the streetslink>ofGurugram on April 30 in support of the six men. The protesters demanded thescrapping of the charges against the accused, as well as a ban on prayermeetings in open spaces and government land without approval fromauthorities.

India’s Muslims have a feeling that a physical and psychological war isbeing waged against them. The state apparatus, as is evident from theexamples given above, is turning a blind eye – if not giving direct support- to the injustices being committed against them. With the generalelections around the corner, many fear that anti-Muslim violence in Indiais only going to increase and intensify in the coming months. This,unfortunately, is being seen by the BJP as a legitimate method ofmobilising Hindu votes in the electoral battle. – AL Jazeera

*The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do notnecessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.*[image: Are rape cases being politicised in India?]

[image: Apoorvanand] link>BY: Apoorvanand link>

Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at the University of Delhi. Writes literary andcultural criticism.