By Vikram Kilpady

Delhi’s most recent communal outburst shook the newswires on April 16. It came about two years and two months after the north-east Delhi riots of February 2020. This time, it was in north-west Delhi’s Jahangirpuri.

The narrative has been that some youth pelted stones at motorcycle-borne men taking out a shobha yatra on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti near the local mosque. It doesn’t reveal what made the stone-pelters rain stones and bricks on the procession, given that the pelting happened near the time roza was to be broken. The Muslim month of Ramadan was halfway then, with the devout keeping dawn-to-dusk fast from April 3. In the melee, nine persons were injured, eight of them Delhi Police personnel.

The next day, residents supporting both groups converged at Jahangirpuri police station demanding action against the other side. With the situation likely to go out of control, policemen at the station cleared the crowd and locked it up in the midst of slogans being raised. Social media was replete with videos of leaders in saffron saying whoever had to live in the country should say Jai Shri Ram.

The Delhi Police initially named 14 accused, of whom nine were in police custody. This includes the main accused, Mohammed Ansar. Five are absconding. As of now, the Police have named 26 people, including two juveniles, for the clash. An overwhelming number of them are Muslim. With social media asserting that only Muslims were picked up, the police had to clarify that it had also named Hindus among the accused.

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Communal outbursts are not new in India; they keep occurring with disturbing regularity. But the reaction to it was astounding this time. The Delhi BJP claimed that those accused in the Jahangirpuri violence were living in illegal constructions and demanded that they be demolished.

The BJP-ruled North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC, but not the New Delhi Municipal Council of Lutyens’ Delhi) dispatched bulldozers to clear encroachments from the area on April 20. It was hotly debated whether notice was issued to those whose shanties or shops were cleared. The NDMC did write to the police on April 19 seeking police cover for the demolition action on April 19 (2.30 pm onwards), April 20 and April 21 (starting 9 am).

Like many outlying areas of the Delhi megapolis, Jahangirpuri, unlike glitzy districts in south and central Delhi, lies smothered in dust with haphazard homes and mohallas. Its only claim to fame is Delhi Metro’s Yellow Line which starts overground here and ends in plush Gurugram.

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Jahangirpuri C-Block, where the clashes occurred, is home to many Bengali-speaking Muslims, often dismissed as Bangladeshis and called termites, vermin and other pejorative terms. A Bengali speaking reporter’s amazement at their Bangla drew one of them to reveal that they speak only Hindi so as not to be identified as Bangladeshis. It is from this churning cauldron of communal politics that the clashes spewed out.

Following these events, Advocate Amritpal Singh Khalsa sent a letter petition to Chief Justice of India NV Ramana seeking suo motu action to set up a sitting judge-monitored probe into the communal violence in Jahangirpuri. The advocate alleged that the probe by the Delhi Police had been partial, communal and attempted to shield the real perpetrators.

Another advocate, Vineet Jindal, filed a PIL in the Supreme Court asking it to transfer the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) so that it could ferret out the involvement of the ISI and other terrorist elements. This PIL looked at the larger angle of attacks on days of Hindu festivals—Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti. The Hindu Sena also entered the fray, seeking an NIA probe.

Aware of the police bandobast ahead of the demolitions on April 20, the residents of C-Block Jahangirpuri with the assistance of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JUH) moved the Supreme Court to stop their homes and businesses from being demolished. Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave mentioned it in the court of CJI Ramana for urgent listing. Dave said it required immediate attention as unconstitutional demolition was going to take place. He said no notice had been issued to anyone as required by law.

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Taking up the matter, CJI Ramana stayed the demolition and ordered status quo and listed it before a bench to hear the next day. Though the order was given at 10.45 am, the demolitions didn’t stop. A CPI(M) team, led by its Politburo members Brinda Karat and Hannan Mollah, went to the spot and tried to stop the demolition work. Karat told the media that the municipal authorities refused to stop work, saying they hadn’t got the orders.

An agitated Dave asked the Court to step in and communicate the order to the NDMC. He said it was terrible that the order of the Court was not being heeded and that too in a rule of law society. The CJI then instructed the Secretary General and the Registrar General to take down the numbers of the NDMC Commissioner, the Mayor and Delhi Police Commissioner and communicate them. That is when the marauding bulldozers stopped, some two hours later.

The next day, the case was listed before the bench of Justice L Nageswara Rao and Justice BR Gavai. Dave argued that this wasn’t only about Jahangirpuri. “It is on social fibre of this country. If this is allowed there will be no rule of law. How is (it the) President of (Delhi) BJP writes and asks to start demolition and they start? 5-15 days notice is a must.”

Dave asked why target one community when there are lakhs who reside in the 731 unauthorised colonies in Delhi. He charged that only the poor are being targeted while the rich continue to live with unauthorised extensions in their homes.

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Solicitor General Tushar Mehta refuted that only Muslims were being targeted. He said many Hindus had lost homes and belongings in Khargone, MP. Mehta maintained that notice was not required for moving chairs and benches, but claimed notice was issued under due process to buildings. This prompted the bench to ask why were bulldozers required to move chairs and benches. Mehta then said the notice against unauthorised buildings was given through a Delhi High Court order on the plea of Jahangirpuri traders against these encroachments. The bench then posted the matter after two weeks.

All this naturally led to severe criticism from many quarters. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief and MP Asaduddin Owaisi told a mainstream paper that the competition between the BJP and AAP in who can be better in implementing a Hindutva agenda has left Jahangirpuri’s Muslims desolate. He termed the Delhi BJP chief’s call to demolish illegal encroachments of Muslims, without due process, vigilante justice. “Now, who are you to decide who is a rioter or not? There are courts of law,” he reportedly said.

Owaisi, who visited the spot on April 20, said that though the Delhi Police Commissioner had said the procession didn’t have police permission, they didn’t act against processionists who were carrying swords and countrymade pistols. The Hyderabad MP reiterated that the processionists provoked Muslims by tying a saffron flag atop the masjid, leading to the violence. The police has been partial and arrested some 24 people, of whom 14-15 were Muslims and the National Security Act provisions had been only invoked against five Muslims, Owaisi said.

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The bulldozer has a central construct in UP, where the BJP won the assembly elections in March 2022. The vehicle and its deployment by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to do away with shanties, unauthorised shops and the like has been much covered by the media. He has even been christened Bulldozer Baba by the fawning faithful who believe that such unauthorised structures are put up only by Muslims.

On April 10, Ram Navami, similar communal “clashes” took place in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone. The next day, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan took on the mantle of bulldozer baba and razed the homes of those responsible for the clashes. Again, many were Muslim.

The demolitions were carried out without due legal process, according to a JUH plea in the Supreme Court. It said demolitions should not be used as a punitive measure and no such action be taken against any person alleged to be involved without legally fixing culpability. This petition had the Union of India as the respondent and sought a directive to it to instruct the states of MP, Gujarat and UP not to continue such extra-judicial practice. This petition is now bunched with the Jahangirpuri case. Brinda Karat has also filed a petition against the North MCD for its illegal action in demolishing homes and shops. A juice shop owner has also moved court saying his shop with all licenses in place was demolished in the drive.

As the searing heat takes hold of Delhi, the residents of Jahangirpuri’s C-Block too are singed and wait for justice. 

—The writer is Editor, IndiaLegalLive.com and APNlive.com

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