Purola tensions latest gash in communally scarred Uttarakhand

The blue shutter has been closed for two weeks, the longest it has ever been. The signs of damage are everywhere. On the left and right bottom corners are two padlocks, but in the centre, the steel sheet is twisted — a testament to a frenzied May 29 attack.

The banner atop the shop that once proudly proclaimed the words “Balle Garments” has been torn asunder, and is barely readable. Then, there is the poster, its remnants still on the shutter, fluttering in the wind. A poster that asks Muslims traders from the town of Purola to leave; a poster that has caused an exodus of sorts; and a poster that is emblematic of a Uttarakhand that is lurching from one communal conflagration to the next.

Originally from Bijnor, 66-year-old Balle Khan was 22 when he first came to Purola, in the foothills of Uttarkashi, seeking work. He first worked at a small factory, building and filling quilts. Then he found employment, in turn at a flour mill and a bakery, slowly putting together money for life ahead. Only in 2000 did Khan finally have the ₹2.5 lakh required to rent the shop where he would sell ready-made clothes for the next 23 years. Since then, except for Sundays, the shutters always opened at 8am, closing like clockwork at 8pm. “Nobody has said a bad word about me or the community in my 44 years of living here. Everything we have is here. Our home, our business, our family, our kids. Now they say we must leave,” Khan said.

THE TRIGGER

At 2pm on May 26, according to Purola police station in charge Khajan Singh Chauhan , a 14-year-old girl sought the assistance of quilt filler Ubed Khan (24), and motorcycle mechanic Jitendra Saini (23) to find her way to the local bus station. “They took the girl away from the main market area near a petrol pump and called an auto-rickshaw to the spot. Locals saw the girl being made to sit in the rickshaw and raised an alarm. The accused fled the spot,” Chauhan said. A case was registered on the same day at the Purola police station under sections 363 (kidnapping), 366A (procuration of minor girl) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and sections of the Pocso Act.

Purola’s peace was broken. It did not matter that both the accused were arrested the next day. Nor that only one of the two was Muslim.

Within three days, right-wing groups held a protest march in the narrow by-lanes of the hill town, raising slogans against the bogey of “love jihad”, asking for Muslim tenants and residents to leave. On May 29, at least 30 shops owned or rented by Muslims were ransacked and attacked. Four days later, on June 3, there was another procession, and at least 25 more shops were attacked in the Barkot locality, some ominously marked with the letter “X”. Love jihad is a term popularised by radical Hindu groups to describe what they believe is an organised conspiracy of Muslim men to force or trick Hindu women into conversion and marriage. The purported motives include expanding India’s Muslim population and aiding the Islamic State.

In both demonstrations, police were present, but did little.

The next day, the posters began to appear across Purola. They asked Muslim traders to leave before a proposed Hindu mahapanchayat, later disallowed by the district administration, on June 15. More than two weeks have passed since the first threats were issued on May 29. A case was registered on June 5 under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 506 (criminal intimidation). But there have been no arrests. Uttarkashi superintendent of oolice Arpan Yadhuvanshi said, “We have not arrested anyone for hooliganism in the town thus far.”

The results are clear. In a population of around 8,000, there were in any case only between 40 and 45 Muslim families that lived in Purola. Less than five remain; the rest have boarded up their shops and homes, moving either to Dehradun or Western Uttar Pradesh to weather the storm.

LIVING IN FEAR

Balle Khan, much to the chagrin of his nine-member family that includes his 40-year-old son Mohammad Ashraf, has taken a stand, and refused to leave. His house, bought from a Hindu family in 1986, is in the Hindu-dominated locality of ward No. 4. It has two floors, and nine rooms. The family has built a life, and a home. But over the past two weeks, Ashraf has slept very little, pathologically following the movements of the two policemen stationed at the entrance of the street. The family has spent ₹22,000 to install five CCTV cameras in their home, facing different directions. “The atmosphere is charged. Anything can happen,” Ashraf said.

He walks nervously to his bedroom, where the feed from the CCTV cameras are beamed constantly. “I never thought it would come to this. I grew up in this town, studied at the Saraswati Shishu Mandir and have mostly Hindu friends. I don’t even know Urdu and can speak very few words in the language. Is my accent that of an outsider?” Ashraf asked.

But he adds that there was little option but to spend money on improved security. His father, Balle Khan has refused to move, and there is an incessant, overpowering sense of fear. Even if their neighbours are sympathetic, there is very little they can do for fear of coming under attack themselves. They hardly step out of their homes, only making trips to the local grocery store for daily supplies. On his phone, Ashraf constantly looks at a 12-second video, shot on a phone. The grainy, pixelated video captures the frenzy of a group of men, screaming “Jai Shri Ram”, destroying the shutter of their shop, and pasting the poster that asks them to leave.

KEY FACES IN THE PUROLA CASE

The posters have a calling card. In one corner, they proudly carry the name of the “Devbhoomi Raksha Abhiyan”, an Uttarakhand-based right-wing group, led by the 68-year-old Swami Darshan Bharti.

Bharti, however, is unapologetic, and does not distance himself from the incidents in Purola. “To protect the sanatan heritage of our sisters, daughters and forefathers, all right-wing organisations, warriors, saints and public should come forward. All should discharge their religious duty,” Bharti told HT.

The Dehradun-based Bharti was one of the participants of a controversial three day Dharam Sansad in Haridwar in December 2021 that saw vitriolic speeches made against Muslims, and saw charges of hate speech made against at least 10 people. To be sure, Bharti himself was not among those charged.

In 2018, Bharti was jailed under Section 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) of the IPC and Section 66F (cyber terrorism) of the IT Act for posts on social media, and was granted bail a week later.

Regardless of these charges however, his Facebook accounts boasts of photographs of meetings with bureaucrats and politicians. One such photograph is of an April 30 meeting with Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.

On June 13, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) wrote a letter addressed to the Uttarakhand chief justice Vipin Sanghi that said, “Swami Darshan Bharti is leading the call for mass evictions. His group, Uttarakhand Raksha Abhiyan, has previously circulated 1.5 lakh pamphlets inciting Hindus to stand up against alleged changes in the demography of Uttarakhand because of Muslims in 2019. He has been previously jailed after his hate-speech inspired physical attacks on Muslims.”

Bharti has a defence for this. “Some Muslims, including those from UP, have been filing cases against me. I have got relief each time with the blessings of God.”

Other organisations pushing unequivocally for the “eviction” of Muslims from Purola include the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, with its working president Virendra Singh Rawat leading the campaign. In December 2022, Rawat and five others were booked by the Purola police under sections 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (Insult intended to provoke breach of the peace), 427 (mischief and thereby causes loss or damage to the amount of fifty rupees or more) and 506 (criminal intimidation) for allegedly leading a mob of 30 people who attacked people during Christmas prayers, accusing them of converting locals.

Rawat said, “I have been actively working against the conversions by Muslims and Christians in our town for the last 9 years. The latest incident of alleged abduction of a minor Hindu girl proves the attempts of a particular community for demographic change.”

THE BROADER COMMUNALISATION OF UTTARAKHAND

But the tension in Purola isn’t just an isolated case in Uttarakhand which has a 13.9% Muslim population according to the 2011 census. Over the past two weeks, rallies against Muslims have been held in the towns of Barkot and Chinyalisaur and the villages of Naugaon, Damta, Barnigad, Netwar and Bhatwari. In the neighbouring district of Tehri Garhwal, on June 5, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal wrote a letter to the district administration that said “people from a particular community” were becoming a threat to their lives, livelihoods and women, and warned that there would be a protest on June 20 if no action was taken.

On June 9, responding to these incidents, chief minister Dhami claimed that cases of “love jihad”– a theory that has no section in the IPC or basis in law — are on the rise in Uttarakhand. “There is growing awareness against crimes of this nature. That is why victims are now coming out to register such cases. It’s a planned conspiracy to change the demography of our state,” Dhami added.

In April 2023, Dhami had said that his government had identified around 1,000 Muslim religious structures built illegally on government land, pledging to remove all of them, terming it “land jihad”. According to the forest department that is in charge of the drive, they have removed a total of 510 religious structures “illegally built on forest land”. Chief Conservator of Forests Parag Madhukar Dhakate said: “Of the 510 religious structures removed from the forest land illegally, 463 were mazaars, 45 temples and two gurdwaras.”

Dehradun-based lawyer Razia Baig, a former member of the Uttarakhand minority commission said, “Communalisation and polarisation is being pushed in the normally peaceful Uttarakhand. There has been a flood of communal incidents and statements in past few months. The minority community is being persecuted and targeted to get the votes of the majority.”

Political activist SMA Kazmi said that the concerted campaign was with the parliamentary elections in mind. “Since the Dhami government has failed to deliver on the promises and various fronts like jobs, law, and order, development, they want to divert the attention of people ahead of the 2024 polls.” The BJP holds all five Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Back in Purola, 45-year old Rahees, another of the few Muslim shopkeepers who remain, is watching the news nervously. He has held out for two weeks, but is not sure he can take more animosity. “The tension has only heightened and I hardly step out of the home. But if I am forced to leave the town I was born in, it will break my heart. I will hold out in hope for peace to return for as long as I can.”