In the Indian capital New Delhi, 46 people were killed during the most violent protests in decades. Indian authorities confirmed this morning.
The situation in the country remains tense since the protests against a new citizenship law started. This already degenerated into fierce street fights and vandalism at schools, shops and mosques.
The cause of the violence is the opposition of Muslims to the so-called “Hindu First” citizenship law of Indian nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to critics, citizenship law discriminates against Muslims who have been made scapegoats by Modi for years. Muslims are the most significant religious minority in India and make up around 14 percent of the Indian population.
The Hindus account for around 80 percent. The Muslims in the country feel abandoned by the Indian government under Modi. They say that the government even encourages violence against them.
Today, the judge in Delhi is examining reports of various people who were victims of the recent anti-Muslim violence. They accuse the party of Prime Minister Modi, the BJP, of merely stirring up the real hatred of ultra-nationalists against Muslims.
A local politician, in particular, Kapil Mishra, contributed to this by proposing in a fiery speech to already hot-tempered Hindus that if the police did not stop the protests of Muslims, they would do that for themselves.
In the hours that followed there were fierce street battles in which people attacked each other with stones, axes, swords and all kinds of firearms. The vast majority of the hundreds of victims were Muslims, many had bullet wounds. Dozens of policemen were also injured, a policeman died.