Four years ago, in the last week of February 2020, a reign of terror was unleashed in North East Delhi. Beginning from 24 February, 2020, murderous gangs armed with petrol, pistols, lathis, swords, stones, and other weapons, attacked and desecrated mosques, madrasas and tombs. They targeted homes, properties, shops and commercial establishments. They unleashed violence and anarchy on a massive scale, indulging in widespread burning and looting.
At least 50 people were reported to have been killed and more than 700 injured. Grievously injured people remained stranded in their homes or in small neighborhood clinics, unable to be moved to a government hospital for fear of being lynched by murderous mobs. Medical assistance and relief supplies were blocked. Only after the intervention of the High Court could the injured be moved to hospital and the supply of relief provisions for the victims begin.
The incidence of violence in North East Delhi in 2020 is referred to in all official accounts as a “riot”. However, eye witness accounts have confirmed that it was not a spontaneous outburst. People in many of the affected colonies pointed out that the murderous gangs who brazenly went about looting and burning were outsiders to the locality. The police forces did not take any action against the criminals. They made no attempt to protect the victims.
The large-scale violence began a day after a peaceful protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was attacked on 23 February, in which several people were injured. Provocative speeches of a prominent BJP leader were widely circulated on TV and social media, threatening large scale violence unless the Delhi Police forcibly evicted the anti-CAA protestors from the protest sites. As if on cue, large-scale violence was unleashed the very next day, targeting people of the Muslim faith .
All the above mentioned facts together show that the tragic events of February 2020 was by no means a “communal riot”. People of the Hindu and Muslim faiths did not fight each other. Many cases came to light, of people heroically defending each other from the criminal gangs, cutting across religious barriers. Gurudwaras kept their doors open to victims of the violence. Doctors and paramedics toiled night and day, risking their lives to help the victims.
What took place was a crime organised by those in power. It was a case of state-organised communal violence. The motive was political. It was aimed at breaking the unity of people who had come together to oppose the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). People of all religious faiths had come together to demand that the state must not discriminate against anyone on the basis of their religion.
The agencies of the Central Government and various TV news channels tried to portray the struggle against CAA and NRC as ‘foreign funded’ and ‘terrorist inspired’.. However, the struggle continued to inspire people, not just in Delhi but in all parts of the country, where similar protest actions began to spread. The state-organised violence in North East Delhi in February 2020 had the very definite aim of smashing this growing unity of the people, cutting across all religious faiths, in defence of their rights.
The communal violence in North East Delhi was deliberately timed to coincide with the visit of US President Trump to India on February 24-25, 2020. This was done to spread the lie that it was an anti-national conspiracy and to justify the most brutal state terror on the affected people.
Following the violence in North-East Delhi, the Central Government cracked down on those who had participated in the anti-CAA protests. Hundreds of people, including youth and women, were arrested and locked up on various charges such as ‘rioting’, ‘arson’, ‘unlawful assembly’, and ‘conspiracy against the state’. Several of them were charged under the draconian UAPA and are languishing in jail ever since.
Four years after the events of February 2020, it is reported that in 757 registered cases in connection with the violence, 183 individuals have been acquitted. In more than 45 percent of the cases, charge-sheets have not even been filed yet. Many have been repeatedly denied bail, with the police churning out one flimsy pretext after another, even after the courts have found no evidence to prove them guilty. A local court in Delhi has called the investigation by the Delhi Police a ‘shoddy probe’, and accused them of manipulating evidence without conducting real investigation.
The violence and terror in North East Delhi in February 2020 once again showed that such incidents are labelled as “riots” in order to blame the people and cover up the truth that it is those in power who are guilty.
The recurring incidents of state-organised communal violence, including that of February 2020, clearly show that communal violence is a preferred weapon in the hands of the ruling class and its political parties, to break the unity of workers, peasants and other oppressed people against the exploitative rule of the bourgeoisie.
The Communist Ghadar Party of India demands that the false criminal cases against the victims and the activists who fought to defend the unity of the people must be immediately withdrawn. Those in jail must be released right away. It is the height of injustice that the real organisers of the crime have gotten away scot-free, while the victims have been accused, persecuted and incarcerated.