A 25-year-old man from New Delhi, Rinku Sharma, was brutally murdered by a Muslim mob on the night of 10 February at about 11 pm. As per the family members of the deceased, the killers were known to Rinku and held a grudge against him for his Hindu activism and association with Hindu organizations. Those named in the killing are Zahid, Mehtab, Nasruddin, Islam and Tazuddin.

The family of the accused has a different version. As per them, Rinku Sharma had gone to attend his friend, Babu’s birthday party along with Aakash, Sachin, Zahid and Golu. There, as alleged by Shama, the wife of Nasruddin, Zahid was forced to consume liquor and this led to a fight and it was Rinku Sharma who first attacked Nasruddin.

After the birthday party, it is alleged that the five men mentioned above went to Rinku Sharma’s house and stabbed him with a knife. Sharma was taken to the hospital where, according to the police, he succumbed to his injuries. As per Rinku Sharma’s mother, there were about 40 to 50 people outside her house, armed with sticks and knives when these five barged into her house and attacked her son.  There appears to be bad blood between the two families, with the police saying that the murder was the result of an old business rivalry. The Delhi Police had initially maintained that Rinku Sharma was stabbed to death following an argument during a birthday party. “Both the sides had a rivalry over opening food joints close to each other”, the Delhi Police had said. This statement was disputed by the brother of Rinku Sharma who said that Rinku was a lab technician and did not have a food joint or even intended to open one. The Police had gone as far as to say that any other motive attributed to the crime was ‘factually wrong’.

Even as Delhi Police came on record to say that there was no ‘communal angle’ to the murder of Rinku Sharma, more evidence and videos emerged on social media that clearly showed that the case was not as cut and dry as the Delhi police were making it out to be with their statement. In addition to that, the family of the deceased, neighbors, friends had all asserted that Rinku Sharma was murdered by a mob of 15-20 Muslims after a clash that erupted during the Ram Mandir donation drive on Wednesday. The family of the deceased narrated how a mob of over a dozen people, carrying lathis, batons, and knives, broke into their house late on Wednesday and assaulted the family members. They dragged Rinku Sharma out of the house and pinned him down. He was then stabbed mercilessly with a sharp knife in cold blood.

Speaking to Sudarshan News, Rinku Sharma’s brother said that the murderers are a group of five Muslim brothers who had barged into their home with other family members and associates, including women and kids. The brother said that the five Muslim brothers had threatened the Sharma family earlier too because of an event organized for the Ram Mandir. The brother explained that the five Muslim brothers and their associates had beaten up other family members too. The distressed father, barely managing to keep himself sitting, recounted the horror to the media. He said that the assailants barged into the house with sticks and knives and brutally stabbed Rinku to death.

However, that limited assertion did not assuage soaring anger after the Delhi Police’s initial statement. Following the demands of the family of Rinku Sharma and various other organizations, the Delhi Police has now decided to transfer the case to special crime branch from the Mangolpuri police station. It seems that the initial mistrust that was sown and the initial downplaying of communal angle by the Mangolpuri police has now led to transfer to the crime branch.

After widespread outrage, the Delhi Police had changed its tunes and asserted that they were ‘probing all angles’ related to the murder of Rinku Sharma. The case has been handed over from the Delhi Police to the Crime Branch and in due course the truth will unravel. But many troubling questions remain.

The murder being the result of a brawl in a birthday party would have held resonance had the killing taken place at the house where the party was hosted. But that was not the case. The murder took place much later, at 11 pm. This points to the act being pre-meditated. It was deliberate and not the result of a sudden rush of blood to the head, which one could have deemed possible, had the murder taken place in the afternoon itself. It was a muslim mob which had been mobilised to go to the house of Rinku Sharma, and all the people who took part in the attack were muslims. So why is this not being considered as a communal crime?Was the killing simply the result of a brawl which went out of control and resulted in murder? Was business rivalry the cause? Or were the causative factors more deep-rooted, based on religious bigotry and hatred? The refrain being heard is that this was not a communal killing. But can that call be made when the investigation has barely begun? And why is there such a rush to rule out the communal angle in the lynching?

Is there a fear in the minds of so called secularists that lynchings by muslims cannot be spoken off as crimes of hatred? Or is there a deeper motive in putting under the carpet, the prospect of the killing being a deliberate and provocative communal act of murder?

Let us examine how other lynchings have been handled by the so called secularists. On 27 June 2017, a 16 year old boy, Junaid, was stabbed in a brawl in a train, after an argument over a seat. This was not a pre-meditated attack, but occurred on the spur of the moment. Yet this incident was given a communal spin and made out to be a case of lynching on communal grounds. Instances of people being killed for stealing cattle are once again given a communal colour if the victim happens to be a Muslim. Vigilantism off course is unacceptable, but the selective highlighting of cases where Muslims are killed, especially post the change of government in 2014, points to a much deeper design to deliberately fan communal hatred and paint the ruling party as intolerant.

It is not surprising that a cursory fact check indicates that incidents of communal violence have shown a downtrend under the BJP led government from 2014 till date, when compared to the ten year period of 2004-2014 under the Congress led UPA regime. So why are attacks on Muslims highlighted with such fervour, but attacks by them on other religious groups are passed off as routine law and order issues? This inability to look at crimes dispassionately denies justice to some, but the consequences are more far-reaching as it provokes a counter reaction, which keeps communities divided. And this divide is fanned by those who style themselves as secularists!

Article 14 of the Indian Constitution grants to each citizen, equality before the law. But some in India’s cabal of opinion makers are living in an Orwellian land, where all are equal, but some are more equal than others. That remains the bane of India’s secularism.

References:

OpIndia - News Reports