More than 500 Muslim men, women and children, residents of Haryana’s Faridabad district have been taking refuge at Ballabgarh police station since Monday evening in midst of violent attacks.
The attack was allegedly carried out by the majority Jat community following a dispute over the construction of a mosque.
The mosque was burnt, homes were torched and belongings were abandoned. Muslim residents of Atali village have fled for their life, abandoning their homes and their return simply didn’t seem possible.
“We had just begun praying when the attacks started. They came in groups of 10 and attacked each house,” Isal, a showroom owner, located directly opposite the under-construction mosque, told.
“Bricks and gas cylinders were thrown, hurled inside the houses. They attacked us with baseball bats and sticks. We tried to escape by locking ourselves inside our homes.
“That was when they started dousing our homes with petrol and setting them on fire,” he added.
Atali Muslims claimed that this selective targeting of homes during the violence was the underlying trend.
There are 20 homes surrounding the under-construction mosque, 17 of them owned by Muslims. All 17 were burn down on Monday. A godown owned by a Muslim farmer, nearly a kilometre from the mosque, was torched on Tuesday morning. It was the only structure in the area that was targeted.
While the Muslims maintained that the court had given them permission to resume construction after a near-six year stay was vacated, the Jats maintained that continuing the construction in the village was in clear violation of the court’s order.
Angry Muslim residents protested on Tuesday, blaming the police of inefficiency in investigating the matter.
“Police have done nothing. Even 36 hours after the violence, they have not made a single arrest,” Sahil Ahmed, a protester, said.
“They are giving time to those who have made us homeless to bury evidence and get away with it,” he added.
According to Police sources, the process of lodging complaints has begun.
“Currently, we are taking down complaints that are being lodged. We are also identifying the houses that have been burnt, locating their owners and calculating the extent of loss,” the officer said.