Religious Profiling of Vikaspuri Attackers: Fallout of Dadri Hype

Too many people have expressed too much outrage and shock over the fact that the religious identity of the brutal killers (major or minor) in the lynching of dentist Dr Pankaj Narang was made into an issue. Questions were raised over the word “lynching”, preferring instead to call it an instance of “road rage”, which certainly wasn’t. All sorts of reasons were forwarded to make it sound like ‘another’ incident of day-to-day crime in this increasingly violent city of Delhi. Yes, Dr Narang’s brutal killing is not the first of its kind; neither does it promise to be the last. On the contrary, if all reports are followed, such incidents of heart-wrenching violence threaten to become an everyday reality here. But before we come to that, it is important to understand why such a big number of people expressed their anger over the religious identity of the attackers in Vikaspuri.

The reason lies in another such incident which took place on 28 September 2015 in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, not too far from the national capital. The Dadri attack, which happened in village Bisara, resulted in the death of Mohammed Akhlaq and seriously injured his son Danish. The attackers were said to be residents of the same village. It was reported that the father-son duo were attacked for allegedly storing/consuming beef in their fridge. Interestingly, the Uttar Pradesh government report on the incident did not mention beef as the trigger for the attack. Instead, it said there were allegations that the victims had consumed “meat of prohibited animals”. Meanwhile, local residents told this writer about various reasons behind the attack including family feud and even a love affair!

We may never know what prompted the Bisara boys to attack a neighbour’s family so brutally in the otherwise close-knit village life of the Hindi heartland. Reviving the brutality of the Dadri lynching is not the purpose of this writer. However, the incident has starkly highlighted, once again, why the country in general and the young generation in particular is losing all respect for the mainstream media (MSM).

Sample this, right from the heading down to the copy, the mainstream media termed the Dadri incident as “beef lynching”, thus making it nothing but a Hindu-Muslim confrontation. Killings for ranjish (ill will) or feuds are as much of an everyday crime in the heartland as thefts and snatching in the cities. These violent attacks happen between people of the same caste, between different castes, between two villages and between different communities and religions. One only has to pick up the local edition of a newspaper to get what I am saying. We could understand if the matter ended with headlining it as “beef lynching” followed by necessary police action. It did not. It did not even end with a host of politicians lining up at Bisara and offering flats in Noida to crores of cash compensation to the victim’s family.

While all this would help the family members of the victim so traumatised by the attack, it did not even end at that. The issue travelled from Bisara to New York and Washington; reams were devoted to the attack! The aim was obviously to paint India as an intolerant nation under the charge of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Nobody looked at the fact that the state law-and-order machinery was responsible.

Programmes, seminars, “studio panchayats” and protests were held nationwide. It was made into a campaign tool in Bihar. In other words, much political capital was made out of Akhlaq’s brutal, cruel murder. Such was the intensity of the “Intolerant India” campaign that the whole world was pulled into it by a well-thought, well orchestrated, well-networked campaign by a section of our own countrymen.

Dadri is now six months behind us. But it has once again hit headlines last week when a Delhi-based dentist, Dr Pankaj Narang, was dragged out of his house, beaten mercilessly and done to death right in front of his wife, son and relatives. His brother-in-law was critically injured. Dr Narang’s only fault was that he had ticked off a ruffian on a bike for nearly hitting his 8-year old son outside their residence while the kids were playing cricket. A father’s guardian-like intervention provoked such a reaction in the ruffian that he went back to his nearby slums and came back with a bunch of fellow ruffians to beat the doctor until life was snuffed out of him. It is now well reported that Maesar, the mother of the prime accused, Nasser, was seen provoking and shouting that the dentist should be taught a lesson.

As news of the horror flashed across television channels, there was outrage on the social media by many Delhiites and outsiders about the nature of the coverage. People were seen questioning on Twitter and Facebook why the planned attack by a group of young men driven by violence and revenge should be dismissed as road rage if Dadri incident was projected as an image of Intolerant India?

The Vikaspuri incident, whatever might have been the trigger, is an abject failure of Delhi Police. It does not matter what time of the day or night the attack took place. If Delhi Police believes in its much publicised motto of “Sadaiv aapke liye, aapke saath” (always for you, with you), it failed to live up to the motto big-time. To add fuel to the fire, a senior officer of Delhi Police gave out a tweet stating that the attackers were both Hindus and Muslims and, therefore, no communal angle should be attributed to the crime! A nationwide television network refuted the claim saying one of the Hindu boys is actually a Muslim in possession of fake identity documents with an assumed Hindu name. Another television network claimed the officer was on leave that day and therefore not even involved in the investigations; so why the tweet? Even if we forget the media, Delhi Police officially tweeted that only 5 persons had been arrested instead of the 9 as claimed by the officer.

If all this sounds muddled, it is time to get a few things clear. The scary and heinous killing of Dr Narang is a criminal attack where the perpetrators must be given the toughest punishment provided by the law of the land. It should not end at that. Residents of the entire colony complained that this was the third incident of its kind in Vikaspuri. There is an urgent need to instill confidence and a sense of security, which can be possible only if the bad characters are identified, police and residents work in co-operation. But the Delhi government, often shrugging off its responsibility on the ground that Delhi Police reports to the Centre, cannot try the same alibi anymore. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his team must realise that creating a vote bank is fine but not at the cost of other residents.

There are any number of reports that confirm that illegal immigration is threatening not just the peace but the very life and security of Delhiites. No prizes for guessing who nurtured the vote-bank originally and who is bagging the votes now.

That brings us back to Dadri. Politicians, the intelligentsia, media and social organisations cannot create a hype over one incident of crime based on religious profiling and expect to dismiss another as an ordinary crime. The moment we resort to identifying the religion of criminals and victims in a case of heinous proportions, we have laid the foundation for similar profiling in all such future incidents. Ironical that those who accuse others of intolerance are often seen displaying a worse degree of intolerance for others’ views.