A sudden scream from a woman broke the silence outside street 18 of Shiv Vihar on Thursday afternoon. A crowd that had gathered to speak to...
A sudden scream from a woman broke the silence outside street 18 of Shiv Vihar on Thursday afternoon. A crowd that had gathered to speak to Scroll.in dispersed and ran towards a Muslim youth caught by other residents a few feet away. As they began thrashing him, a resident called out to the paramilitary personnel deployed near the spot. “They will kill the boy. Please hurry up,” he yelled.
A Delhi Police officer on a Royal Enfield motorbike sped towards the melee, extracted the Muslim man out by his collar. The paramilitary then pushed the crowd back into the bylanes, warning that there was a curfew in place.
The Muslim man’s mistake was that he had breached the undeclared border between the Hindu and Muslim sides in Shiv Vihar, a locality in North East Delhi. The area has been the epicentre of violence in India’s capital since February 23, in which at least 37 have died.
Beneath the tense calm, there is seething anger among the Hindus. They felt the attacks were planned well in advance and rumour mills fed the idea that Muslim families living on the Hindu side were sounded out before the mobs were “let loose.”
Burning frontiers
Since last week, North East...
