India activist Afreen Fatima says her house bulldozed ‘illegally’

Agencies A young Muslim activist whose house was bulldozed by the authorities in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh says it was an “act of vendetta” ...

Agencies A young Muslim activist whose house was bulldozed by the authorities in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh says it was an “act of vendetta” by the government for the protests over comments made against Prophet Muhammad by officials of the country’s right-wing governing party.Surrounded by a large posse of police in riot gear, authorities in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj city on Sunday brought in earthmovers to demolish Afreen Fatima’s house as dozens of media people recorded the demolition.Within hours, the two-storey building was reduced to rubble and its belongings – furniture, books and photographs – thrown on an empty plot next to the house. Among them was a poster that said: “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” Afreen Fatima house bulldozed The demolition came after days of protests by India’s Muslims against the anti-Islam remarks by two members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) earlier this month, triggering a diplomatic backlash against New Delhi.As several Muslim nations demanded an apology from the Indian government, the Muslims in India saw the remarks by the BJP’s Nupur Sharma and former Delhi media cell head Naveen Kumar Jindal as yet another instance of the right wing’s hate speech against the minority community which has spiked since Modi came to power in 2014.As global outrage grew, the BJP suspended Sharma and expelled Jindal, saying their comments do not reflect the party’s views and asking its spokespeople to be “extremely cautious” on religious matters while speaking on news channels. Meanwhile, police in the Indian capital filed cases against the two and others for “inciting hatred” and other charges.But Muslim groups said the moves were not enough and held large protests in several cities after the congregational prayers on Friday, demanding the arrest of the duo. Two teenagers were killed and dozens wounded in the protests. Hundreds of protesters were arrested.The protests in Prayagraj – earlier known as Allahabad – on Friday following the Muslim congregational prayers turned violent at some places, with police firing tear gas and baton-charging as demonstrators marched and allegedly tried to burn a police vehicle.A BJP spokesperson said Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a saffron-robed hardline Hindu monk, ordered officials to demolish any “illegal” establishments and homes of people accused of involvement in the protests.At least two other houses belonging to Muslims were also demolished in Uttar Pradesh over the weekend.Fatima’s family was not even home when their 20-year-old house in Prayagraj was torn down.Hours after Friday protests in the city, police raided the house and took away her 57-year-old father Mohammad Javed, mother Parveen Fatima, 52, and teenager sister Somaiya.“At around 8:50pm on Friday, police came, saying they want to talk to my father. They asked him to accompany him to the police station. That is it. They did not tell us if it was a detention or if it was an arrest. There was no warrant that was shown,” Fatima, 24, told Al Jazeera TV during an interview on Sunday.Javed, who is a politician belonging to a Muslim party, was charged with rioting and the police soon declared him the “mastermind” of the protests in Prayagraj – a tag flashed immediately on TV screens across the country.Parveen and Somaiya were detained by the police and released on Sunday morning. “My mother and my sister were illegally detained for more than 30 hours,” Fatima told Al Jazeera TV.Fatima rejected the allegations against her father and called the bulldozing of their house an illegal act committed by the authorities.“The demolition is absolutely illegal because it is not even my father’s property. The house belongs to my mother,” she told Al Jazeera over the telephone.“We had been paying our house taxes for around 20 years and not once did we receive any intimation by any development authorities of Allahabad that our house is illegal. Why were they even taking our taxes if it was an illegal house?” she told Al Jazeera.The family shared water bills and house taxation documents to back their claim.Fatima said the house was demolished without a court of law proving the charges against her father.