Muslim minors attack Hindu festival in India, Muslims throw hot water on Hindus in Bangladesh

Hindus have a tradition of building makeshift pavilions, holding prayers, and participating in processions during their religious celebrations such as Ram Navami, Durga Puja, etc. As witnessed many times over the past decade, Muslims have also come up with an interesting tradition during the Hindu festivities. This tradition involves throwing stones at Hindu processions and launching attacks on Hindus engaged in their religious festivities. No Hindu religious occasion is now complete without Muslim mobs launching violent attacks on the Hindus. We have repeatedly and exhaustively reported on such instances over the past few years. And with every report, we find a gradual increase in the intensity of the attacks.

Muslims targeted the Ganesh Chaturthi festivities, which celebrates the Hindu deity Ganesha as the God of New Beginnings and Remover of Obstacles, all over India and parts of Bangladesh last week. One of the significant incidents that deserves special mention is the stoning of Ganesh pandals, temporary structures set up to venerate the deity, in Syedpura in Gujarat, which was planned by a gang of six Muslim minors. Though they were planning to attack 10 Ganesh pavilions daily, they were arrested after their second attempt.

Police investigations revealed that the minors raided the Hindu venues, shouting the “Allahu akbar” chant. The leader of the gang was being trained by a local madrasa for the past three months, and collected food items and other objects from a nearby mosque; investigations into the activities of this madrasa have also been initiated. The police have also summoned some Muslim leaders. The incident was followed by communal violence, with stones being hurled at the Hindus and police personnel from all directions. Some attackers were heard directing their accomplices to hit the police with sticks on the head so that they would die. The officials have arrested 27 rioters apart from the six minors in this case; while the names of the minors have been withheld, those of the rioters have been revealed, and they all have Muslim names.  The minister of Home Affairs of Gujarat has promised swift and strict action on the accused.

Muslim children were involved in triggering communal unrest in the Soni Bazar area of Athwa, Surat as well. Police on Tuesday, September 10 apprehended two Muslim women, Rubyna Irfan Pathan and Laima Salim Shaikh, for shattering the idols of Ganesha. They are also accused of inciting their children, aged five to six, to tear down the idols and create a disturbance in the shop of Vishal Hiralal Khalasi, a Hindu who sold religious idols. This mayhem not only hurt the religious sentiments of the Hindus in the area, but also caused a loss of 60 thousand rupees ($714) to the shop owner.

Violence targeting Ganesh Chaturthi festivities was reported from other parts of Gujarat as well. “Unknown miscreants” have vandalized pavilions and destroyed idols in various areas in Vadodara. Investigations are ongoing.

In an incident reported from the Mundra area of Kutch district, Gujarat, two young men named Hamja and Garooq and three others have been arrested for brutally assaulting Hindu youths returning home after buying the idol of Ganesh for the festivities the following day. Police have lodged an FIR against five accused under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS); two of them have been arrested as well.

Similar incidents of stone-throwing at the idols of the Hindu deity have been reported from the Ratlam district of Madhya Pradesh. The alleged attack resulted in a massive protest, with over 500 people from the Hindu community gathering at the local police station, demanding immediate action against the stone throwers.

India aside, massive attacks on the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations were planned and executed in Bangladesh, and no one is surprised. Anti-Hindu violence has been rampant throughout the length and breadth of the Islamic country since the toppling of the Haseena government. Islamists poured hot water from the roofs of high-rises on Momin Road in the Kadam Mubarak area near the Kadam Mubarak Mosque in Chittagong on the Ganesha idol and members of the “Batargalli Dhwapara Sarbajanin Puja Committee,” who were bringing the idol in a van from the factory of Hindu artisan Uttam Pal. Eyewitnesses narrate that the Hindu procession was also attacked with bricks. Several Hindu devotees were severely injured during the attacks.