Amnesty International has called on Indian authorities to immediately halt the “unlawful” demolition of Muslim properties, as it released two new reports describing the targeting of homes, businesses and places of worship across several states belonging to the minority community.
Calling the demolitions a form of extrajudicial punishment, the rights group demanded adequate compensation to all those affected by the demolitions that have rendered hundreds of people, most of them Muslims, homeless and their livelihoods destroyed.
The London-based rights group also called on the JCB construction equipment company, whose bulldozers have been widely used in the “punitive” demolitions, to “publicly condemn the use of its machinery to commit human rights violations”.
The two reports, titled Bulldozer Injustice in India and JCB’s Role and Responsibility in Bulldozer Injustice in India, document demolitions of at least 128 properties between April and June 2022. Amnesty International says the demolitions carried out by bulldozers have rendered at least 617 people either homeless or destroyed their livelihoods.
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It says authorities in five states – Assam, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi – carried out demolitions as a “punishment” following episodes of religious violence or protest by Muslims against discriminatory government policies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been accused of running anti-Muslim rhetoric, rules in four out of the five states.
“The unlawful demolition of Muslim properties by the Indian authorities, peddled as ‘bulldozer justice’ by political leaders and media, is cruel and appalling. Such displacement and dispossession are deeply unjust, unlawful, and discriminatory. They are destroying families — and must stop immediately,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, in a statement on Wednesday.
Authorities in India have denied that the Muslim community was being targeted.
BJP spokesman Raman Malik told Al Jazeera in the wake of demolitions in August that bulldozing is only done to remove illegal encroachments. But rights groups pointed out that overwhelmingly, Muslim properties were the target.
