Mumbai Communal Riots 2012

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Azad Maidan riots: Man held after video shows him firing SLR


A 23-year-old man was arrested today after a video of Saturday's violent protests here against alleged atrocities on Muslims in Assam showed him firing a police weapon, raising suspicion that two protesters killed in the rioting could have fallen to friendly fire.
"Salim Allarakha Choukiya alias Ali (23), who had snatched a rifle from the police during the riots, was arrested from Anand Nagar area of suburban Oshiwara today," Ravindra Patil, assistant inspector at Oshiwara police station, said.
Salim could be seen firing a self-loading rifle seized from a policeman, Patil said, adding, "The accused claimed he had abandoned the rifle at the spot before escaping from there and did not fire."

Video footages of the Azad Maidan violence available with the investigators showed a section of protestors firing SLRs in the air.

"We are still to recover a pistol and some bullets missing since the Azad Maidan violence. We have visuals of some people who snatched firearms from police and fired in the air," said a crime branch official, who is the part of the Special Investigating Team probing the case.
Two SLRs, 150 rounds of ammunition and a service pistol of a police inspector had been looted by the mob. Police had later recovered the two SLRs and 29 rounds of ammunition.
Investigators are trying to trace the protesters featuring in the videos carrying guns and have detained five suspected rioters with injury marks. The role of the five in the riots is being ascertained, sources said, adding they have admitted to have been present during the violence but claimed to be innocent.
As hammers, knives and empty cans, said to be used to carry kerosene, and a pistol that did not belong to police were seized from the spot after the rioting, police suspect the violence was pre-planned. They are also probing if the death of two persons during the violence was caused due to firing by the unruly mob.
Two youths were killed and 52, including 44 policemen, injured last Saturday when a rally called to protest alleged atrocities on Muslims in Assam and Myanmar turned violent.
The protesters went on the rampage, attacking the police, including some women constables, torching media and police vehicles, smashing cameras of photo journalists and damaging buses.
A day after the riots, police had arrested 23 persons in connection with the incident.

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Protest against Assam riots in Mumbai turns violent


Mumbai: Several shops, vehicles and two vans belonging to television channels were burnt during a rally at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan to condemn the the Assam riots and attacks on Muslims in Myanmar, TV channels reported on Saturday.

The otherwise peaceful rally turned violent in the afternoon and police had to resort to lathicharge to disperse the unruly crowd that began wreaking havoc in the South Mumbai locality, well known for having hosted other popular rallies and protests in the past.

More than 1,000 people participated in the rally, TV channels reported. It is not known yet whether the mob that started the violence was part of the peaceful rally. The mob is also said to have burnt ten BEST buses at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

RAF personnel had been deployed at the site. Mumbai’s Police Commissioner and other senior officers were also at the site, CNN IBN reported.

Led by Raza Academy, an organisation working to promote Islamic culture, the protest was supported by other organisations like Sunni Jamaitul Ulma and Jamate Raza-e-Mustafa. They also condemned the riots and violence in Assam.

Sporting black badges, hundreds of members and activists of these organisations, converged at the Azad Maidan and expressed concern over the massacre of the Muslim community.

Maulana Syed Moinuddin Ashraf, president of Jamia Qadriya Ashrafiya, has urged the the central and state governments to intervene.

“It is the responsibility of the Congress government to protect the Muslims, and for that matter each and every citizen,” said the Maulana, who is also known as Moin Miyan.

“With regards to the massacre in Myanmar, we understand it is an external problem and that certainly should be taken care of, but what is happening in Assam reflects on the state of affairs of the country,” he added.

“A large number of Muslims have been rendered homeless and are now living in camps,” said Raza Academy chairman Saeed Noorie.

Noorie said they have already written to the government of Myanmar, the United Nations, the International Human Rights Organisation, Organisation of Islamic Countries, President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to highlight the massacre of Muslims in Myanma.

Protest against Assam riots in Mumbai turns violent | Firstpost

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The politics of riots

At 3.25 pm last Saturday, I received a call from my wife. “We are in the middle of a riot,” she said with as much composure as she could muster.

A violent mob of young Muslim men was burning buses, police vehicles and TV Outdoor Broadcast (OB) vans in front of our car in Mumbai’s central business district near Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST). Through my phone, I could hear the muffled shouts of the rioters as they hit our car with whatever they could lay their hands on.

The protest by several Muslim groups in Mumbai was led by the Raza Academy, Jamata Raza-e-Mustafa and Sunni Jamaitul Ulma, ostensibly against Bodo-Muslim violence in Assam and "ethnic cleansing" of Muslims in Myanmar. It had begun peacefully enough at Azad Maidan, the traditional venue for peaceful protests, including several by Anna Hazare in the past year.

The protest, however, soon turned violent. As it left Azad Maidan, the mob began torching vehicles. Our car, along with many others, was caught in the middle of what was now a full-scale riot in south Mumbai’s busiest commercial district.

The mob threatened passengers, ordering them to abandon their vehicles. Many did. Within minutes, the mob had smashed their windscreens.

A police jeep in front of our car was set on fire. Three BEST buses a few metres to the right were stoned. I could hear the mob’s growing fury through the phone line.

My wife, Kahini, an artist and the daughter of a decorated Admiral, does not panic easily. She held her nerve and refused to abandon the vehicle. For the next 15 minutes I stayed on the phone line with her, helping guide our driver as he wove the car through the frenzied mob, heading towards the JJ flyover which lies beyond the Mumbai Police Commissioner’s office.

Finally, as the Rapid Action Force and police reinforcements arrived, our car reached the flyover and sped to safety. Two people died in the riot in which the police and the media were deliberately targeted. More than 50 were seriously injured.

* * *

Despite 26/11, and despite bomb blasts in suburban trains and in commercial areas over the past five years, Mumbai has remained largely riot-free. That Muslim-Bodo violence in Assam could spark the sort of riot we saw in Mumbai on Saturday afternoon shows how deep communal fissures are. They have lain quiescent for years but the anger, on both sides, has been simmering. It takes little to light the fire.

Who is responsible for these communal fissures? The RSS with its Hindutva philosophy? The BJP with its version of nationalism? The Congress with its brand of secularism that preaches inclusiveness but practises separateness? The NCP and regional parties like the SP with their open agenda to win Muslim votes? Or Muslim leaders – mullahs – who encourage such fissures to retain their hold over impoverished Muslims?

The NN Vohra Committee report following the serial bomb blasts in March 1993 had exposed the deep nexus between politicians and the Mumbai underworld led by Dawood Ibrahim. The Sharad Pawar-led NCP and the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) have been in the forefront of commmunalising politics in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh respectively in order to win Muslim votes and stay in power.

It is hardly surprising that a party like the NCP is a staunch ally of the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress in the UPA government and that the discredited SP lends it outside support in parliament. The Congress itself uses a slightly more sophisticated modus operandi to achieve the same votebank objective as the NCP and SP.

The Congress’ alliance with Asaduddin Owaisi’s MIM in Andhra and Omar Abdullah’s NC in J&K represents another marriage of communal convenience. Ironically, NN Vohra, whose report exposed the political-underworld nexus, is currently the Governor of J&K. No tangible action has ever been taken on his report.

The open support given today by the BJP, JD(U) and other NDA constituents to Baba Ramdev is a signal that the electoral battle for 2014 has been joined. If the UPA government’s corruption and economic paralysis persists, an early general election could be upon us. The UPA’s hope that a “Team Anna” party would split opposition votes could be dashed if the opposition unites with Ramdev’s rural constituency and urban civil society movements.

* * *

Ordinary Muslims are both victims and willing fodder of communal parties wearing a secular mask. They want to join the mainstream. But 65 years of Hindu-Muslim schism, engendered by the counterfeit brand of secularism practised by the Congress and communal regional parties in order to stay in power, has divided communities.

This has made it doubly difficult for Muslims to escape their self-made ghettos. Muslims – even “important” ones like Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar – don’t get flats in areas they would like. Ordinary Muslims don’t get jobs; they simply aren’t trusted by employers. They end up as electricians, mechanics and spot boys.

Where are the liberal Muslim voices? Azim Premji speaks of governance and philanthropy, rarely about secularism and communalism. He must speak up now. So must Aamir Khan and others in order to put 175 million Muslims in India on the path of modernity and social and economic progress rather than the path of medieval self-destruction.

Head On : Minhaz Merchant's blog-The Times Of India
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Mob goes berserk in Lucknow, targets media

Violence erupted after Alvida namaz (on the last Friday of Ramzan) in Lucknow as a mob, numbering about 500, went berserk and indulged in large-scale violence, targeting mediapersons in particular and even beating up several bystanders who were caught unawares. The mayhem on a six-km stretch, from Pucca Pul (formerly Hardinge Bridge) near the Tile Wali Masjid and Asafi Imambara in the Old City to Dharna Sthal opposite the Vidhan Bhavan building, continued for about an hour notwithstanding a strong police presence on account of Alvida. Several persons, including five press photographers and TV cameramen, were injured in stone throwing and other violence, and over a dozen vehicles, including those of a TV channel, damaged and torched. Roadside shops at Buddha Park and near the Scientific Convention Centre were ransacked by the miscreants, who also roughed up some tourists at Buddha Park and the adjacent Haathi Park.

An FIR was lodged against unknown persons at the Hazratganj police station by the district administration. No arrests have been made.

Members of the All India Samyavak Backward Buddhjivi Employees Samiti (AISBES), who were staging a dharna at Dharna Sthal, were also roughed up by the protesters and their banners torn down. Ashokanandji, a Buddhist and president of AISBES, said three vehicles, including his Maruti 800, were damaged.

Violence against Muslims in Assam and Myanmar was said to be the cause of a protest march. But it is not known who was behind the decision to gherao Vidhan Sabha and who made speeches at Pucca Pul, inciting the mob. A dharna was staged at Dharna Sthal by the State unit of the Jamiatul Ulema Hind in protest against the atrocities on Muslims in Assam and Myanmar, but the JUH denied it was involved in violence and arson.

Lucknow Senior Superintendent of Police R.K. Chaturvedi told The Hindu that investigations were launched to find out the source of violence. Asked who made provocative speeches, he said a video grab was being examined. The SSP, however, said the protest march converged at the JUH dharna site at Dharna Sthal.
Buddha Park ravaged

It all started as people were returning home after prayers around 2 p.m. Some people gathered at Pucca Pul and gave a call to gherao Vidhan Sabha. Soon hundreds of youth and others joined the march. They first ransacked Buddha Park, broke the entrance gates, and beat up the security guards and some tourists. A similar situation prevailed at Haathi Park, Shaheed Smarak and Parivartan Chowk en route to Vidhan Bhavan and at Dharna Sthal. Mediapersons were beaten up at all these places and their cameras snatched. Some protesters carried the metal poles of road dividers, while others wielded bricks and blunt weapons.

The police used force to disperse the violent protesters, but only after the mediapersons protested and even staged a dharna at the Allahabad Bank crossing at Hazratganj.

Principal Secretary (Home) R.M. Srivastava has assured them that strict action would be taken against the culprits.

Two mediapersons have been hospitalised

The Hindu : States / Other States : Mob goes berserk in Lucknow, targets media