SHAFAQNA- More than 3,000 poor Muslims have fled Indian business hub outside New Delhi this month, after religious attacks targeting them.
Shops and shacks owned or run by Muslims and their houses in two large slum areas were padlocked when Reuters visited them more than a week after seven people were killed in clashes in Nuh and Gurugram districts in Haryana state, adjoining the Indian capital.
The violence began on July 31 after a Hindu religious procession, organised by groups ideologically aligned with the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was targeted and a mosque attacked in retaliation. Police quelled the unrest in 48 hours.
But minor attacks targeting Muslims have continued for days, scaring families who had moved to the new urban centre of Gurugram – where 250 of the Fortune 500 companies have offices – in search of a livelihood.
Stone-throwing, arson and vandalisation of two small Muslim shrines in the slum districts forced hundreds of Muslim families to abandon their single-room houses and seek shelter at a train station before heading out, witnesses said.
The Gurugram president of Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind (Council of Indian Muslim Theologians) Mufti Mohammed Salim estimated that more than 3,000 Muslims had left the district after the violence.
Source: Reuters