Harsul is turning into Atali of Maharashtra Another Hindutva laboratory experiment

Truck loads of adivasis from Gujarat descended on the village Harsul in the tehsil of Tirumbakeshwar near Nasik. It was well planned to coincide with the visit of Home Minister Rajnath Singh at the inception of year long Simhasht Kumbh mela at Tirumbakeshwar on July 12, 2015. An adivasi boy Bhagirat Choudhary had slipped and had fallen into a well and died on July 7. The issue was kept simmering to blow up on the D day. The attack on Muslim shops and houses began systematically even before Singh’s plane lifted from Nasik air port.

The Muslims of the village watched the movement and feared of impending attack. They were so scared that many families sought refuge in Nasik city. They complained to the Nasik police and sought security. It was the well on the farm of a Muslim farmer that was the epicenter. Muslims said that they had nothing to do with the death and duly informed the police. But as the police were preoccupied with the security matter of the Home Minister Muslims of the village approached the senior police officers and attempted to protest against the threatening move of adivasis. The district police officer told them that they should reach their homes in the village instead of protesting in Nasik. He assured that the police force, nearly 300 strong would be there before their return. However the attack led to immediate looting and burning the shops of Muslim minority. They destroyed Mukhtar Sayyed’s two excavator vehicles. The roof tiles of their houses were smashed to pieces. The police fired at the adivasis and injured many and one of them was seriously injured. They did not allow the police to retrieve the injured. Ramdas Gangaram Buth(28) bled profusely and then died. The attack did not slacken and die down. The adivasis were determined to spread it to other parts of Nasik and even to Malegaon. On the following day, that is Wednesday, the adivasis returned and made further attempts and succeeded in burning four houses of Muslims. The police chased them into the four hills surrounded the hamlet. When they climbed one hill the police tried to overtake them but it was diversion. In the meantime from the opposite hill more sneaked into the village and carried out the attack and fled. In the continuing violence 32 cops received injuries, seven of them seriously. This guerilla tactic continued. The attackers were unidentified leading to suspicion that they were from outside. Another village, Vajwada of Peth taluka also saw violence as a fall out of Harsul events. Ramdas’ body was brought to his village Nachloni village and cremated. The tribals sat on the top of the hills and lay in wait. When they saw the opportunity they descended in droves of batches of well trained and armed tribals on the village of Harsul and systematically looted and burnt the shops in the vicinity of the bus stand. Gulzar Kokni and others like him lost their entire business as the police had prevented them from coming out of their houses. After looting the houses and shops the adivasis started setting them to fire when the Muslims came out and fought back the attackers. The district superintendent of police Sanjay Mohite accepted that his men were not up to the guerilla tactics of the adivasis and called for more force and tents to cover the hills and beyond. After the 26/11 the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce and Industries had organized a conference in Delhi attended by Ajit Doval, B Raman and Brijesh Mishra within one week of the attack. The Task Force Report that was the result of the deliberation observed that terrorism was a matter of city and that security forces must focus on that and save energy and focus less on communalism. Thus what is happening in Atali in Haryana or Harsul in Maharashtra is the long term effect of that conference. However, it is a quaint inference that such organized attack of well trained and armed adivasis does not come in the purview of terrorism despite all the hallmarks of terrorism present in the attacks. When the victims saw the marauding batches coming down upon their houses with no succor in sight they were truly terrorized. The regular and replenished bouts of attack sapped the morale of the victims. They had hardly enough strength to withstand the attacks. Already their fellow members of the community depleted their numbers while shifting to safer havens in cities. The post mortem report clearly stated that the Bhagirath had died after he slipped into the well and drowned. That means that there was no prior attack on him. Rizvan Sheikh the owner of the farm with the well and his brother Irfan wrote to the tehsildar about their concern for security and also met the IG rank police officer about the issue. Irfan is also a member of Shiv Sena. Two days after the Harsul violence the local Muslims want to return home but have misgivings about the police. The nearby village of Thanapada is also tense with youths keeping watch from the mosque minaret and look with apprehension at Harsul and the hills around seven km away. Eerily coinciding with all this was another such incident in Vashim- Karanja, Lad. A Muslim rickshaw driver was accused of teasing a Hindu girl. People beat him up and handed over to the police. In the resultant violence two men were s tabbed and one was killed. When the Muslims went to complain to the police, the cops did not want to register FIR. The man killed was a youth of 22 years, Sheikh Babu. His cycle had grazed someone and on that pretext the mob beat him and killed him with knives. The Muslims then marched in protest and under this pressure the police arrested 5, one of them was Ajay Jhanjhad who had fatally stabbed Babu. There was also two cases of inter religious marriages where girls from Hindu community had married Muslim boys. The majority community dubbed it love jihad. Hingoli town had police deployed in large numbers as precaution. Against this background Rajnath Singh held out threat to Pakistan for cross border firing. At the Nasik temple on Godavari river a sadhvi Trikalbhavantji spoke in favour of having separate and exclusive arrangement of staying and bathing in the river for the sadhvis. She also remonstrated that sadhus should behave becoming of holy man. As she spoke in the presence of the chief minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fanavis, a sadhu Gyandas Maharaj snatched the mike from her hands. These combustible scenes were not far from Harsul where the tribals were on the verge of setting fire to a petrol pump when the police opened fire on them. ----- Asian Age July 15, 2015. Times of India July 16. DNA July 15. Loksatta July 15, 2015. Inquilab July 15 http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/harsul-violence-we-want-to-return-but-we-dont-have-faith-in-police/