Nuh, India – Abdul Rasheed says police locked him in a bus as a bulldozer demolished his retailers in India’s northern Haryana state the place a Muslim-majority district noticed communal clashes final week.

“I was heartbroken. My family and children depended on the rent we received from the shops. We had rented shops to both Hindus and Muslims,” he advised Al Jazeera on Sunday, including that the authorities “gave no notice or showed any order, and bulldozed everything”.

“This is vengeance. They are destroying hotels, shops and homes. There is no appeal and hearing,” the 51-year-old mentioned. “We have been handed a begging bowl.”

Rasheed’s is amongst greater than 300 Muslim houses and companies bulldozed by Haryana’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) authorities since Thursday in yet one more occasion of collective – and selective – punishment of a group over religious violence.

The clashes started after a procession organised by a far-right Hindu group, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) and its youth wing, the Bajrang Dal, reached Haryana’s Nuh district, about 85km (52 miles) from New Delhi.

The two organisations, affiliated with the ruling BJP, typically make headlines for his or her violent rallies focusing on India’s spiritual minorities, mainly Muslims and Christians.

The Hindu teams blamed Muslims – who type almost 77 p.c of Nuh’s 280,000 residents, in accordance with the final census carried out in 2011 – for beginning the violence. They mentioned their procession was pelted with stones and their automobiles torched, resulting in clashes between the 2 communities.

Muslims say the set off for the violence was a Facebook video launched by Monu Manesar, a infamous Hindu vigilante accused of killing two Muslim males earlier this 12 months for allegedly transporting cow meat.

Many Hindus belonging to the privileged castes take into account cows holy. Sale and consumption of beef is banned in lots of Indian states, whereas dozens of lynchings of Muslim butchers and transporters have occurred since India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi got here to energy in 2014.

In the video, Manesar, who in accordance with the Haryana police is absconding, purportedly urged Hindus to hitch him in Nuh for the VHP-Bajrang Dal procession – a name that angered the district’s Muslims.

‘Tyranny of the government’

As the information of clashes in Nuh unfold, anti-Muslim violence erupted in numerous elements of Haryana.

In Gurugram, a bustling metropolis on New Delhi’s outskirts whose glitzy highrises host a number of Fortune 500 corporations, a younger imam was beaten and stabbed to death by a mob and the mosque set ablaze.

Another mosque was attacked in Sohna, about 25km (15 miles) from Gurugram. Six folks had been killed within the violence final week – three of them Muslims, together with a police guard, and two suspected Bajrang Dal members. A Sikh guard was the sixth to be killed within the riots.

However, virtually all of the houses, retailers – each concrete and moveable – and shanties bulldozed within the aftermath of the violence belong to Muslims.

“They are torturing Mewat. This is being done to make the Bajrang Dal happy,” Rasheed advised Al Jazeera, utilizing the historic identify of Nuh.

In current years, a number of states ruled by the BJP have seen bulldozers being deployed to destroy the properties of Muslims accused of taking part in spiritual clashes, or different such expenses.

BJP spokesperson Raman Malik advised Al Jazeera the demolitions had been being carried out to cease “illegal encroachments” on public lands and had no reference to the riots.

When requested in regards to the timing of the demolitions coinciding with the aftermath of the violence, he mentioned, “Do you want this illegal work to be supported? Look at these two things separately.”

Several rights teams have condemned the Indian authorities for finishing up the demolitions, a few of which had been carried out miles away from the location of final week’s violence.

A excessive court docket on Monday stayed the demolition drive in Nuh and sought a proof from the BJP authorities in Haryana.

“Those who had nothing to do with the violence are bearing its brunt,” mentioned Rafiq Ahmed, who ran a medical retailer in Nuh. “I had a licence for this shop. This is tyranny of the government.”

Beside Rafiq stood two Muslim ladies who had been gathering stays from their demolished retailers. They advised Al Jazeera the boys from their households had fled the city over fears of being arrested.

‘Almost all those arrested are Muslims’

The arbitrary arrest of greater than 150 Muslims for the violence, as confirmed by the police to Al Jazeera on Monday, is one other facet of the BJP authorities’s crackdown in Nuh, leading to a whole lot of males fleeing their houses in concern.

Tahir Husain, a lawyer defending many of the arrested, alleged the police are indiscriminately arresting folks with none rigorous investigation.

“There may be one or two people from the ‘other side’ but almost all of those arrested from Nuh are Muslim,” he mentioned, calling the arrests “unlawful and reckless”.

“It’s a scary spectacle. Following the violence, even advocates were not ready to come forward. In fact, an advocate was picked up by the police. Later, he was released but what about the common man? The poor and vulnerable with no support are at the receiving end,” he mentioned.

“The streets have been abandoned and the atmosphere is worse than the COVID-19 lockdown. At least there was no terror in the hearts of people at that time.”

On the streets of Nuh’s Mewli village, there was an eerie silence on Sunday.

Village head Choudhary Safahat advised Al Jazeera 9 members of his household had been picked up final week, together with his grandson and nephews, after almost 150 cops stormed the village at about 5am.

Safahat’s 21-year-old grandson Aahir Khan is a scholar of legislation at a personal college in Alwar in neighbouring Rajasthan state, about 100km (62 miles) away. The village head mentioned Khan was showing for his semester examinations on the time of the violence, exhibiting his grandson’s admit card and journey tickets.

“Aahir returned in the evening and the next morning he was arrested,” mentioned Safahat, 51.

Many others had comparable tales, primarily within the worst-hit Mewli and Moradbas villages the place Muslims mentioned they had been pressured to flee their houses, fearing vindictive motion by the police.

Shahrukh Khan, a safety guard at a authorities medical school in Nalhar, was additionally picked up by the police in reference to the riots. His household claims he returned from work at about 12pm on July 30 and left for responsibility the following day when the clashes broke out.

“They nabbed him while he was sleeping. They did not even let him wear his clothes. All of this is so unjust,” his spouse advised Al Jazeera.

Safahat mentioned one of many arrested males from his village was bodily disabled. He was launched the following day, he added.

Some folks took refuge in close by hills, a gaggle of villagers from Mewli advised Al Jazeera. “When the police come, men in the villages go into hiding leaving behind only women and children,” mentioned one.

“Nobody is going to the police to get our boys out. There’s fear among the villagers that they will get arrested too if they approach the police,” one other native added.

When requested why males from just one group had been being arrested, Krishan Kumar, spokesperson for Nuh police, advised Al Jazeera: “We can only arrest those who are accused. Whoever, be it a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Sikh, will come to us, we will treat them equally.”

Prominent Muslim parliamentarian Asaduddin Owaisi mentioned the BJP authorities in Haryana is defending Manesar, the particular person accused of killing two Muslim males in February, and “all Hindutva [Hindu supremacist] organisations”.

“The BJP is indulging in illegal demolitions wherever their governments are. They have usurped the right of the courts of law and are giving collective punishment to the Muslim community without following the due process or the principle of natural justice,” he advised Al Jazeera.