‘Where will I go?’: Hindu man dead, Muslims in India’s Bahraich face attack

Ram Gopal Mishra was seen climbing a Muslim house and hoisting saffron flag on it moments before he was shot dead.

Bahraich, India – At about 10:30am on October 14, Mohammad Kaleem received a frantic call from a friend, urging him to flee with his family.

A day earlier, a 22-year-old Hindu man, Ram Gopal Mishra, was allegedly shot dead by a Muslim man while a Hindu religious procession was passing through the Muslim-dominated neighbourhood of Maharajganj, 5km (3.1 miles) from Kaleem’s home in Kapurpur village in Bahraich district of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Religious processions – of all faiths – have for centuries been a part of India’s diverse social fabric, where different communities have lived cheek by jowl. But in recent years, as Hindu far-right groups have grown increasingly assertive under the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), many processions have taken on a darker hue. Hindu groups now often march through Muslim localities while playing Islamophobic songs on loudspeakers and raising hate-filled slogans.

“This has been happening at every Hindu procession that has passed the village in the last three to four years,” Dawood Ahmed, 32, who owns a shop in Maharajganj, told Al Jazeera.

This year, tensions exploded. A widely shared video on social media purportedly shows Mishra climbing the terrace of a house in Maharajganj, shaking the iron railing on the roof until it broke, and then tearing down a green flag on top of the house and replacing it with a saffron flag. Green flags with Islamic motifs are common on Muslim homes while saffron is a colour often used by right-wing Hindu groups.