‘They started shooting’: Assam Muslims recount police killing

Up to 1,300 families made homeless and two killed as authorities in India’s Assam launch eviction drive.

Dhalpur Part 3, India – Soon after the Friday prayers on the platform of a razed mosque, Ainuddin struggled to recount the sequence of events of the previous day when his elder brother Mainal Haq was allegedly shot dead by the police in Darrang district of northeastern Indian state of Assam.

“The police shot him in the chest. The photographer thrashed him. They kept thrashing him even after he was dead,” Ainuddin told Al Jazeera. The stomping of his bullet-ridden body by a photographer had gone viral.

Next to him, the rest of the family including Mainal’s wife and his children sobbed in a makeshift shelter of two small tin sheets that they erected by the river on Thursday after their houses were demolished as part of anti-encroachment drive. Up to 1,300 families now have been rendered homeless and living in makeshift tin houses.