Between
May 2015 and Dec. 2018, at least 44 people have been killed, Human Rights Watch
found. Most of the victims were Muslims accused of storing beef or transporting
cows for slaughter, a crime in most Indian states. Many Hindus, who form about
80 percent of India’s population, consider cows sacred.
By Kai Schultz
Villagers mourn a cattle trader killed by a
mob in Kolgaon, India, last year.
Credit Altaf Qadri/Associated Press
|
NEW DELHI —
The Indian authorities have delayed investigating a wave of vigilante-style
murders of religious minorities, with many instead working to justify the
attacks or file charges against some of the victims’ families, according to
a report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch.
The
104-page report said that since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing
Bharatiya Janata Party was elected in 2014, attacks led by so-called cow
protection groups have jumped sharply.
Between
May 2015 and Dec. 2018, at least 44 people have been killed, Human Rights Watch
found. Most of the victims were Muslims accused of storing beef or transporting
cows for slaughter, a crime in most Indian states. Many Hindus, who form about
80 percent of India’s population, consider cows sacred.
Data
cited in the report from FactChecker.in, an Indian organization, that tracks
reports of violence, found that as many as 90 percent of religion-based hate
crimes in the last decade occurred after Mr. Modi took office. Mobs hung
victims from trees, frequently mutilated victims and burned bodies.
In
almost all of these attacks, victims’ families faced significant pushback when
they pressed for justice. The police “initially stalled investigations, ignored
procedures, or even played a complicit role in the killings and cover-up of
crimes,” the report said.
“Indian
police investigations into mob attacks are almost as likely to accuse the minority
victims of a crime as they are to pursue vigilantes with government
connections,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director of Human Rights
Watch.
Released
ahead of national elections this April and May, the report, called “Violent Cow
Protection in India: Vigilante Groups Attack Minorities,” also looks at the
government’s response to 11 recent attacks that killed 14 people.
According
to a survey from NDTV cited by Human Rights Watch, “communally divisive
language” in speeches by elected officials shot up nearly 500 percent between
2014 and 2018, compared with the five years before the B.J.P. came to power.
Ninety percent of those speeches were from the B.J.P., which has ties to
far-right Hindu nationalist groups.
“We
will hang those who kill cows,” Raman Singh, a member of the B.J.P. and the
former chief minister of Chhattisgarh state, said in 2017.
The
report said this sort of rhetoric, paired with the profusion of stricter cow
protection laws, had emboldened mob attacks. They included assaults of Muslim
men and women in trains; the stripping and beating of lower-caste Dalits in
western India; the force-feeding of cow dung and urine to two men in northern
India; the rape of two women and the killing of two men in the state of Haryana
for allegedly eating beef at home.
Some of the attacks were filmed, suggesting that the
mobs did not fear retribution for their actions, said Harsh Mander, an Indian
social worker and writer.
“You
won’t put your face on video committing a crime if you’re bothered about being
punished,” he said. “You’re assured that you’ll be protected and treated like a
hero.”
Last
year, India’s Supreme Court introduced “preventive,
remedial and punitive” measures to stem mob violence, noting that false rumors
spread on messaging applications like WhatsApp had worsened the problem. And in
August, after a long silence, Mr. Modi spoke out against
the attacks, saying, “I want to make it clear that mob lynching is a crime, no
matter the motive.”
But
Mr. Mander said these denouncements were too soft. And he added that changing a
culture of “fear” among minorities would take much more than just voting the
B.J.P. out of power.
“They’ve
created an enabling and supportive environment for people to act out their
hate,” he said of the government. “Once you let the genie out of the bottle,
it’s not going to obey you and just go back in.”
Follow Kai Schultz on Twitter: @Kai_Schultz.