Ahmedabad: A Muslim migrant worker was called “Ali Khamenei’s nephew” and asked to vacate his house in a predominantly Hindu neighbourhood in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
Visuals circulating online show a Bajrang Dal worker, Ganesh Vanzara, and his associates intimidating the Muslim man in Naroda area of the capital.
When the migrant worker said he was a Muslim from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, Vanzara immediately asked for his identification proof.
“Ali Khamenei ka bhateeja mila hai, inse nivedan hai yaha se khaali kardo, aap apne jage chale jao (We have here Ali Khamenei’s nephew. We request you to vacate this place and return to where you came from),” said the Hindutva worker, while his associates listened.
Muslim men staying in the locality could result in women being discovered in freezers, after being “trapped in love jihad,” Vanzara said. He said it was reason enough to pressure the man and force him out of the area.
“Hamari behen beti redddi hai ki kal uske koi love jihad me hamari Hindu digri phasegi toh challe me kya hoga (Our sisters and daughters are at stake — if one of them gets entangled in ‘Love Jihad,’ what will become of our Hindu families?).”
“Love jihad” is an Islamophobic conspiracy theory promoted by right-wing Hindutva groups that claim Muslim men “strategically” target Hindu women to seduce, deceive and force them into marrying and converting to Islam.
“Hamari behen bheti freezer ke andar milegi (Our sisters and daughters will end up being found inside a freezer),” Vanzara boldly claimed.
Aftab Poonawalla case
The imagery stems from the 2022 case of Aftab Poonawala, who was arrested for murdering his live-in partner, Shraddha Walkar, in Delhi. He allegedly strangled her, sawed her body into several pieces and kept them in a fridge for almost three weeks before disposing of them. Delhi Police had said in their 6,629-page chargesheet that Poonawalla reportedly shifted her body parts between the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator any time a woman he met on a dating app visited his house.
Ganesh Vanzara alleged that Muslims were paying a lesser amount of rent than the Hindu occupants of apartments in the neighbourhood.
“Go to your own area, stay happy there. Just sing the praises of Ali Khamenei,” he said. Vanzara’s comments received loud cheers as the other workers encouraged the confrontation.
Gujarat has increasingly become ghettoised, an aftereffect of the 1985, 1992 and 2002 riots that turned the state into a centre of communal tension. The aftermath of the 2002 riots, especially, when Narendra Modi was the chief minister, had not only intensified ill feelings between the two communities but also forced many Muslim residents to migrate from their original homes and seek refuge elsewhere.
From this forced migration emerged communal ghettoisation, with such pockets of population often overlooked by the administration, with no decent infrastructure for living.
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