Victims recall horrific ordeal during communal violence in Chhattisgarh’s Gariaband

Victims recount harrowing experiences of communal violence in Chhattisgarh, detailing assaults, arson, and threats during the ordeal.

“Whenever I saw images of riots on my mobile phone or TV, I would cry, wondering how one human being could do this to another. But that day, it happened to me. My husband kept saying, ‘Stop it, forgive me, what’s my fault?’ But no one listened. People just kept hitting him.”

Standing next to her husband — who is in a wheelchair, with plastered limbs and almost his entire body wrapped in bandages — this is how a 35-year-old woman victim of Sunday’s (February 1, 2026) communal violence in Chhattisgarh’s Gariaband recalled her family’s ordeal that lasted for several hours. A large mob allegedly unleashed itself on the 10-odd Muslim families of Dutkaiya village, setting their houses on fire and forcing them to flee. 

The violence was the fallout of a chain of events that began a few hours earlier when three men, one of them out on bail in a temple desecration case, allegedly assaulted locals. 

For the woman, who chose to remain anonymous citing security fears, it was not just the assault on her husband or the arson that she had to endure. The mob also threatened her with sexual assault and she was forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ after the attackers issued a chilling warning that they would kill her seven-year-old son otherwise, she claimed.

For several hours, vandalism and arson went on outside their home. As members of the mob proceeded in breaking the main entrance, the woman, her husband and her son had locked themselves in one room while four women and her minor daughter were in another room. 

“I tried to block the door with a cupboard, but they used a full gas cylinder to break it down. He hit the door so hard that it completely blew out. There was no escape. He was inside and brutally beat my husband in front of me. I pleaded with him, but they said, ‘Wait, after this, your turn will come. Let your husband die properly, then it will be your turn, and then it will be your son’s turn,’” the woman told The Hindu at a government hospital in Raipur where her husband is being treated. All other Muslim families from the village have also taken shelter in the State Capital.