Anger Against Mewat Attack On Hindu Procession Spills In Delhi Streets, VHP-Bajrang Dal Stage Protests

Yesterday (2 August) morning, an urgent petition was filed in the Supreme Court to stop rallies announced by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its youth-wing Bajrang Dal in New Delhi against the violent attack on Hindu processions in adjoining Mewat three days earlier.

By that time, some Hindu groups had already staged protests in Badarpur and Seelampur areas of the capital city. 

The apex court, however, refused to stay the protest rallies. Instead, the court asked the police to videograph the rallies and ensure that no “hate speech” was made.

Eventually, scores of protest rallies were taken out on Wednesday (2 August). As per various reports, the rallies began around 9am and concluded in the evening. No untoward incident took place, except for traffic disruptions in some areas.

As per reports, a total of 23 rallies were announced by the organisers in different parts of the city. These included areas in northeast that were affected by communal riots in 2020, which left around 50 people dead.

Among the first casualties in the riots were policeman Ratan Lal, resident Vinod Kashyap and Intelligence Bureau staff member.

Hindustan Times quoted Special Commissioner of Police (law and order zone-1) assaying no police permission was taken by the organisers. Senior members of VHP-Bajrang Dal said that they did not have time to contact individual police stations but informed the police headquarters about the protests.

The report said that the protesters chanted ‘Jai Shri Ram’, ‘Har har Mahadev’ and ‘Vande Mataram’.

On 31 July, a Shobha Yatra was taken out by VHP-Bajrang Dal in Haryana, which started from Gurugram. The organisations have been taking out the religious procession for three years, and it involves members of the Hindu community visiting prominent temples in Mewat region that is around 90 per cent Muslim.

The procession came under attack by members of the Muslim community, who had been issuing threats for several days on social media against the procession.

The threats were particularly directed against Bajrang Dal leader Monu Manesar, who leads cow vigilantism cell of the organisation in Haryana.

Monu was also named in a case in February where two men — Nasir and Junaid from Mewat — were found burnt to death in a car. The Rajasthan police who are investigating the case have not named Manesar as a key accused in the chargesheet but marked him for larger investigation. The police have been criticised for having not arrested Manesar yet.

Two homeguards, Neeraj and Gursewak, were killed on the day the procession was attacked in Nuh district (Haryana) of Mewat region.

As violence spread to neighbouring areas of Nuh, four civilians were killed, namely Shakti Singh, Hafiz Saad, Abhishek and Bajrang Dal activist Pradeep Sharma.