The smile never went off Nishant Kumar’s face. Only his voice quivered with excitement as he spoke, animatedly with hand gestures, about mu...
The smile never went off Nishant Kumar’s face. Only his voice quivered with excitement as he spoke, animatedly with hand gestures, about murdering three Muslim men on February 25.
It was an act of “retaliation”, he insisted.
The previous afternoon – Kumar is certain it was exactly 1 pm – he claimed to have witnessed a “Mohammadan” mob burn down vehicles in the Yamuna Vihar service lane that runs parallel to the Wazirabad-Loni road in North East Delhi. He was at the Bhajanpura petrol pump, fuelling up one of his lorries. He owns two of them.
“Main bhaaga us time jaan bachha ke,” said Kumar. “I fled then to save my life.”
The petrol pump was burnt down soon after. Carcasses of vehicles still lie strewn in the area.
Kumar, 29, lives in Karawal Nagar, located on the other side of the Wazirabad-Loni road. It is one of the localities that was convulsed with the worst communal violence in four decades in India’s capital that has left 47 people dead. Most of those killed are Muslims.
The violence had originally begun on February 24 as a clash between groups supporting and opposing the new Citizenship Amendment Act. The legislation enables Indian citizenship for undocumented non-Muslim migrants from the three neighbouring countries, introducing...
