New Delhi : Almost a week after the clashes between Hindus and Muslims began, a clearer picture of the horrors inflicted during New Delhi’s worst communal riots in decades has begun to emerge, as Dawn News reported.
The Muslims were beaten, lynched and burnt alive, The Guardian Reported.
On the eve of US President Donald Trump’s first state visit to India last Sunday, protesters in the Indian capital charged at each other with homemade guns and crude weapons, leaving the streets where the rioting occurred resembling a war zone, with houses, shops, mosques, schools and vehicles up in flames. At least 42 people were killed and hundreds more wounded.
The wounded came in waves. First in ones and twos, limping up the steps and staggering through the aluminium doors, and then in wheelbarrows, with bleeding skulls and stabbed necks. Finally, the motorcycles and auto-rickshaws arrived, their seats stained with the blood of as many as they could hold.
As the Mustafabad neighbourhood of India’s capital was ravaged by communal riots for three days this week, the Al-Hind Hospital turned from a community clinic into a trauma ward.
Doctors like M.A. Anwar were for the first time dealing with injuries such as gunshot wounds, crushed skulls and torn genitals.
"I wanted to cry and scream," he recalled. "Something inside of me died during those three days."
Authorities haven’t given an official account of what sparked the riots, though the violence appeared to be a culmination of growing tensions that followed the passage of a new citizenship law in December.
The law fast-tracks naturalization for some religious minorities from neighboring countries but not Muslims. Opponents say it violates India’s secular constitution, and further marginalizes the 200 million Muslims in the Hindu-majority nation of 1.4 billion people.
This is Muslim neighborhood in Delhi's shiv vihar resembles like a ghost town ... has been turned into a refuge for those displaced in the riots, reported Gulf News