Jaunpur district has once again emerged as a communal hotspot, and this time those at the receiving end are Dalits. Batheti village on June 9 was witness to massive communal and caste violence, as a mob of around a hundred Muslims descended upon the Dalit basti and burnt down houses of the families living in the area.
On Tuesday, June 9, a group of Dalit children had gone to graze their buffaloes in a nearby field, where Muslim children were present along with their goats. A quarrel erupted reportedly after the buffaloes hit one of the goats. What started as a petty quarrel among children soon turned into a full-blown violent campaign against Dalits in the area. Some parents are said to have visited the Dalit basti and quarrelled violently with some of the residents. This altercation was diffused soon by the village head.
However, the same night, a mob of Muslims rampaged the Dalit basti, and burnt down houses belonging to the families living in the locality. They also injured some men of the basti. Outgoing SHO of Sarai Khwaja Police Station, Sanjiv Mishra, told the Indian Express, “There was stone-pelting from both sides and people alleged that firearms were used. Eleven boys from both the communities were injured in the stone-pelting. Later, a group of Muslim men indulged in arson and set fire to Dalit huts.”
“When some family members, including mothers of my cousins, went to inquire about the incident to the house of the accused, they had to face abuses… Around 6 pm, 57 identified and 20-25 unidentified people from the Muslim community came to our basti with sticks and weapons and threatened to kill us…Women and children had to take shelter in the nearby village and 10 houses were burnt by the Muslims,” one of the complainant told the police.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while taken note of the brazen developments in Jaunpur during a pandemic, ordered two main accused individuals to be slapped with charges under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) and Gangster Act. Further, all the accused have also been booked under section 7 of the CLA Act, Disaster Management Act, Epidemic Diseases Act and under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The two main accused members of the mob, who led the charge, are said to be Javed Siddiqui and Noor Alam. Incidentally, Javed Siddiqui is a Samajwadi Party leader, who has now been slapped with the NSA. Further, the Sarai Khwaja Police Station SHO, Sanjiv Mishra was also shunted out for failing to curb the violence.
Jaunpur has time and again erupted as a communal hotbed, mostly due to the shenanigans and motivations of a particularly restless community, allegedly under a constant state of threat. Last year, two Muslim boys had objected to the chants of “Bol Bum” by Kaanwariyas while passing by them in Jaunpur district. Upon refusal to stop chanting the same, they were beaten up. In 2017, a girl was eve-teased by a Muslim boy, following which the father of the girl approached the scene later and enquired about the same. Soon, a huge crowd descended upon the girl’s house with weapons.
Meanwhile, in UP’s Azamgarh, Dalit girls were being harassed and molested by a group of men repeatedly for the past few days. Twelve people including Parvez, Faizan, Noor Alam, and Sadre Alam have been arrested by the in-charge of Maharajganj police station on the instructions of Yogi Adityanath, and will now be charged under NSA.
These incidents puncture the much-touted “Jai Bheem Jai Meem” narrative which leftists have been propounding for quite some time now. While superficially certain Dalits and Muslims may seem united on Literature Festival stages and intellectualized campuses, the ground realities are starkly different, and often blatantly violent. Even on June 9, the Muslim grazers are said to have hurled casteist slurs on the Dalit children. “Jai Bheem Jai Meem” was coined as a term with the sole motive of fighting supposed Hindu and Brahminical supremacy in India, although the recent incidents of Uttar Pradesh have exposed the above phrase to be an abjectly hypocritical failure.