IAMC called on Indian officials to do everything in their power to de-escalate the tensions and contain the violence orchestrated by supremacist organisations.
Press Release
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) has condemned the recent vicious hate-motivated killing of four people, including three Muslim passengers and one railway police official, aboard the Jaipur-Mumbai Central Superfast Express. In a video recorded following one of the killings, the murderer, a railway policeman named Chetan Singh, praised India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath.
“If you want to live and vote in Hindustan [India], I am telling you, it’s only Modi and Yogi,” said Singh in the video, echoing Hindutva rhetoric deployed in other anti-Muslim attacks.
Rasheed Ahmed, IAMC Executive Director, said in a statement that Chetan Singh could not have made himself more clear. He declared India a Hindu nation and sought support for Modi and Adityanath. This is a politically inspired hate crime and a terrorist attack.
He said that the price of Modi’s anti-Muslim agenda and Adityanath’s hateful rhetoric is Muslim lives. “Not a week goes by in India without someone taking inspiration from ‘Hindutva’ ideology and claiming innocent Muslim lives,” Ahmed said.
“Singh’s shocking attack is a particularly acute example of the anti-Muslim violence sweeping India, including in the state of Haryana, where Hindu mobs killed 19-year-old deputy Imam Maulana Saad and razed the Anjuman Jama mosque, where he led prayers. Hindu mobs continue to roam the streets in Haryana city Gurugram, vandalising Muslim-owned businesses,” the statement said.
“The killing of Saad follows violent clashes which occurred a day earlier in nearby Nuh, when Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad paraded through the Muslim-majority district. Violence broke out after Monu Manesar, a Bajrang Dal member wanted by authorities for leading the brutal mob lynching of two Muslim men earlier this year, posted that he planned to join the procession,” it said.
Separately, IAMC President Mohammed Jawad said the outbreak of communal violence in Nuh and Gurugram is a product of the radicalisation of sectarian politics pushed by Prime Minister Modi and Hindutva minded politicians. By endorsing and collaborating with Modi, American officials are helping to legitimise the ideas fueling the violence, he said.
Indian Americans called on the US State Department to designate India a Country of Particular Concern and for Indian officials to do everything in their power to de-escalate the tensions and contain the violence orchestrated by Hindutva organisations.
