-Gujrat replayed in Delhi
-0 killed as RSS, BJP fanatics resort to brutal violence against citizenship law protestors
-Mosque, Dargah vandalized
-Police provide complete cover to rioters
-Mob shout ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and parade around burning Mosque in Ashok Vihar
-Indian flag hoisted on Mosque’s minaret
NEW DELHI: A mosque has been set on fire in the Indian capital New Delhi as violent protests continue across the city with the death toll rising to 10.
Indian website thewire reported that a mob shouting “Jai Shri Ram” paraded around the burning mosque in the Ashok Vihar area of the capital on Tuesday.
Video footage shared on social media showed a mob climbing to the top of the mosque’s minaret where they attempted to plant an Indian flag.
Local media reported that shops in the area were also being targeted by the mob.Police imposed a restriction on large gatherings in northeast Delhi as reports emerged of stone pelting and more structures set ablaze.
Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital official Rajesh Kalra told media that 31 people, including 10 who were seriously hurt, were admitted earlier on Tuesday.
“Since yesterday, we’ve been calling the police to enforce a curfew, to send reinforcements,” Saurabh Sharma, a student from a riot-hit area who took his injured friend to the hospital, told newsmen.
Anil Mittal, a senior police officer, said approximately 150 people were injured in the violence that started as US President Donald Trump arrived on a two-day India trip.
“Some of the people brought in had gunshot wounds,” Rajesh Kalra, additional medical superintendent at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, said of Monday’s violence.
Fresh violence has been reported from Muslim populated areas such as Karawal Nagar, Maujpur, Bhajanpura, Vijay Park and Yamuna Vihar, while stones were thrown in neighbourhoods such as Maujpur.
Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal appealed to residents to maintain peace after an urgent meeting of his newly elected legislators in the capital.
Kejriwal told ANI news agency that his party’s legislators from the affected areas said there was a “severe shortage” of police officers.
The clashes erupted on Sunday after supporters of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), passed by Parliament last December, attacked anti-government protest sites. The CAA, dubbed “anti-Muslim”, has triggered nationwide protests, especially by Muslims.
The violence started a day after the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kapil Mishra warned anti-CAA protesters to end their peaceful sit-ins in the northeastern Jafrabad and Maujpur areas of the Indian capital.
On Monday, police used tear gas and smoke grenades but struggled to disperse the stone-throwing crowds.
A tyre market was set on fire later on Monday, the Press Trust of India said. A video posted on social media showed crowds of men shouting “Jai Shree Ram” or “Hail Lord Ram”, a revered Hindu deity, as they went on a rampage, according to media.
Several vehicles and a fire truck were torched in Jafrabad and Maujpur as police imposed prohibitory orders to prevent further violence.
Mittal, the Delhi Police official, said on Tuesday additional police officers had been deployed in the northeast district of Delhi.
One police constable was among those killed in the violence that erupted just ahead of Trump’s maiden visit to the capital city.
Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks on Tuesday at a venue located a few miles away from where the clashes occurred.
Tension in parts of the city remained high on Tuesday with schools remaining shut in some areas, amid news reports of fresh clashes. At least five metro stations in the city were closed. Several journalists covering the violence were also attacked by angry mobs at several places.
“Two of my colleagues Arvind Gunasekar and Saurabh Shukla were badly beaten by a mob just now in Delhi, they only stopped beating them after realising they are “our people- Hindus”. Absolutely despicable,” a senior journalist Nidhi Razdan wrote on twitter. Monday’s clashes were among the worst seen in Delhi since the protests against the CAA began in early December.
India’s capital has been a hotbed of protests against the law, which eases the path of non-Muslims from three neighbouring Muslim-majority countries to gain Indian citizenship.
This has led to accusations that Modi and his Hindu nationalist BJP are undermining India’s secular ethos.
The BJP denies any bias against India’s more than 180 million-strong Muslim minority, but objectors have been holding protests and camping out in parts of New Delhi for two months. As clashes that broke out on Monday over India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) continued for a second day in New Delhi, the death toll from the violence rose to 10 on Tuesday, Scroll.in reported.
The clashes between groups that have been demonstrating for and against the CAA also left more than 150 people injured. The riots the deadliest violence in the city since protests against the new citizenship law began over two months ago came as US President Donald Trump was in India on a two-day official visit.Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met for talks on Tuesday at a venue located a few miles away from where the clashes occurred.
According to the Scroll.in report, angry mobs threw stones and petrol bombs at Muslim homes in Kabir Nagar, near Maujpur. Journalists were also attacked and many were forced to delete pictures and videos from their phones, the publication added. The report added that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said he had a “positive meeting” with Home Minister Amit Shah regarding the riots in the Indian capital. Speaking to the media, he maintained that police were outnumbered and were unable to take action as they did not have orders to do so, the publication said.
According to The Wire, stone-pelting and arson have continued in the Ghonda area, close to Maujpur.
Across the locality, The Wire saw broken and burnt vehicles, burnt shops and vehicles still on fire. There were some police standing at the edge of the Hindu-majority area, but did not intervene when vehicles were burning, the publication said.
Eyewitnesses said the violence continued overnight, and several shops were broken. “There was stone pelting in the area early this morning also,” a resident was quoted as saying.
The clashes erupted in a northeastern district of the city between thousands of people demonstrating for and against the new citizenship law.
People supporting a new citizenship law push police barricades during a clash with those opposing the law in New Delhi India, on
Tensions in parts of the city remained high on Tuesday with schools remaining shut in some areas amid news reports of fresh clashes. At least five metro stations in the city were closed.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted that schools in the capital’s northeast would be shut on Tuesday and exams postponed.
Police used tear gas and smoke grenades but struggled to disperse the stone-throwing crowds that tore down metal barricades and set vehicles and a petrol pump alight.
“Some of the people brought in had gunshot wounds,” said Dr Rajesh Kalra, additional medical superintendent at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in New Delhi.
One police constable was killed, a police official told Reuters, declining to be named since he wasn’t authorised to speak to media.
A fire department official told Reuters that its teams were responding to reports of at least eight separate cases of arson on Tuesday, linked to fresh protests in the city.
One department vehicle was also torched by protesters on Monday, and a small number of firemen were injured in the violence, he added.–Agencies
