Targeting Muslims or Anti-Encroachment Campaign? Nuh demolition action after clashes

Nuh/Haryana: Even as Nuh limps back to normalcy amid curfew and mobile internet suspensions in the wake of communal clashes on 31 July, the fear that more Muslim properties will be razed as a part of the ‘anti-encroachment drive’ continues to hang heavy on the district — despite the Punjab and Haryana High Court putting a stay on demolitions in Nuh and neighbouring Gurugram.

Locals said the demolition drive, which began last Thursday after communal clashes during the Braj Mandal Yatra, a religious procession, which left six people dead and over 15 others injured, was not over illegal encroachments but to teach Muslims in the violence-hit district a “lesson

Nuh resident Sufiyan Ahmed scrambled to salvage whatever he could from his brother’s medical store located near the Shaheed Hasan Khan Mewati Government Medical College in Nalhar, Nuh. The shop was razed in the demolition drive. Like many others ThePrint spoke to, Ahmed claimed that they never received any notice and alleged that Muslim properties were being cherry-picked.

We have incurred a loss of Rs 10-15 lakh. We received no notice. We have been running this store for a decade. They can now show backdated notices and try to blame us for not removing our stock. But we have all the documents to prove that the shop wasn’t illegal,” Ahmed said.

Only last week, media reports had quoted state home minister Anil Vij as saying, “Ilaj mein bulldozer bhi ek karvayi hai (bulldozer is part of the treatment).”

The Punjab and Haryana HC Monday asked the state government if properties belonging to a “particular community” are being targeted “under the guise of law and order” and if an “exercise of ethnic cleansing” is being conducted.

Nuh Deputy Commissioner Dhirendra Khadgata refused to share details of the properties razed with ThePrint. “We will inform the court. It’s not like we are targeting Muslims. It is the media that is showing that. Some of these properties were rented by Hindus, too. They were informed, given ample time to remove their things and also served notices,” said Khadgata but did not share official figures of the structures demolished in Nuh.

He also didn’t clarify if the “illegal” structures stood on panchayat land, forest land, municipal land or public land.

However, sources in the police said the demolished hotels, restaurants, shops or homes were seen in CCTV footage as being used by “suspects to hide and pelt stones” on the pilgrims of the Braj Mandal Yatra.

Officials told ThePrint that over 162 permanent and 591 shanties (temporary structures) had been demolished on 57.5 acres of land at 37 places in Nuh before the high court order. These include medical stores, testing and ultrasound labs, hotels, commercial buildings, shanties, and homes.